


Backstage

by Goldnglass



Category: RuPaul's Drag Race RPF
Genre: Basically every RPDR S4 Queen, Drug Use, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Possibly explicit mature content in the future, Profanity
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-14
Updated: 2018-05-07
Packaged: 2019-03-18 05:45:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 32,397
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13675458
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Goldnglass/pseuds/Goldnglass
Summary: Aaron got on the show. Justin didn't.A recounting of Sharon Needles' time during Season 4, focusing mainly on the before and afters of every episode (what we don't see), with some background to Sharon and Alaska's relationship through flashbacks.I'm not planning on smut content, but that might change.





	1. Before Episode 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is something I've had in the back of my mind for a while now. I have a pretty good outline of where I want to take this, although I might expand further after the end of Season 4. If you enjoyed, please leave a comment or a kudos, and thank you for reading!

“I’m so nervous”.

Aaron was sitting on the copilot seat, gazing steadily out the window as they rushed through the highway, making a fast way to the airport. He wished for a traffic jam, a car accident, a meteor strike, or something that would make them go more slowly, maybe even miss the flight. _Shut the fuck up, brain. That’s not funny._ Just something so he could have a few extra moments alone with Justin.

He was painfully aware of the heavy silence that had set inside their beat-up car the minute Justin had backed out of their driveway and sped down their street, breaking a little more forcefully than needed when they reached the intersection. It had been a tough few months. Ever since he got the Skype call that changed everything, him and Justin had been holding their relationship together by the edges.

 

* * *

 

Aaron remembered all too clearly how he had walked back home that night, the entire 6 miles. It had seemed like a thousand cabs had passed him, honking, offering a ride, but he declined every time. His insides were churning and he desperately wanted to fill his lungs with as much Pittsburgh air as was possible, feeling as if every moment spent in this enchanting city was now precious and rare. Who knew where life would take him now? Who knew what would happen after the shooting? Who knew what would become of his relationship?

Aaron did not know, that was for damn sure.

 

In all honesty, he was also stalling his arrival home. He did not have the courage to look Justin in the face and tell him that his dream (the one he had denied to everyone, even to himself) was becoming true, when he knew full well his was not. He smoked an entire pack of cigarettes during that 6-mile walk, although what he really craved was a bump. 

His inner self went back and forth so quickly it was making him dizzy. _Surely they see me as a filler queen, every season has its fair share of those. No doubt they’re gonna send me packing on the first fucking day. And I’m sure Justin knows that too. I’ll just be upfront with him and tell him that, we’ll have a laugh and a PBR. It’ll be fine. At least it will get my name out there, and the Haus of Haunt can enjoy a little notoriety for five minutes. It probably still stings that I got it and he didn’t, but who cares? It’ll just be something funny to tell all our sisters about when I get back from LA. At most I’ll be gone a week, for sure. Maybe two weeks, if they keep me for two or three episodes. Although, if I get to stay that long, maybe I’m not such a half-assed queen. My video audition was a piece of shit and they picked me, so they can’t think I’m that much of a loser. What if I stay long enough to win a cruise for both of us? That’d be awesome. Him and me, hurling through the Caribbean sipping Mai Tais. Yes, just three or four episodes and then I’ll be happy to come home after I’ve showed the world my kind of drag. Justin and I have always known it’s worthy of recognition, and who knows? Maybe I can even make it to top 3. Then I would definitely be able to increase my booking fee, and that would give us security for a long while. Although, to make top 3 I definitely need to get some new drag. And some new wigs. I should probably also start preparing for Snatch Game, come up with a good character. Snap out of it, Aaron. You’re going home on the first day. Surely Justin knows that too._

 

By the time he turned the corner and saw their tiny little house at the end of the street, his feet were killing him and it was definitely late at night. He was startled to see no lights on inside. _Has he gone? Does he know I got it? Has he left me already?_

Aaron ran the entire block with what little strength he had left, panicking inside, wanting to throw open the door to their house and make his way to their bedroom, to see if all of Justin’s things were gone or not. _Surely not…_

He fidgeted with the keys at the front door, his hands shaking so badly that he could not get the right key in the lock. When he finally turned it and threw open the door, he was enfolded by the absolute darkness inside. He quickly threw his hand to the familiar place in the wall and flicked the lights on.

He spotted Justin, looking tiny and fragile, sitting with his knees to his chest, his face so swollen that his red glassy eyes had all but disappeared from his face. The moment Justin looked up and locked eyes with Aaron, he let out a mournful sob.

“I didn’t get it”, he sniffled. “I didn’t get it, I didn’t get in. I’m sorry… I’m sorry! I didn’t get it!”

Aaron made his way to the other side of the living room in three huge lounges, dropped to his knees and encircled Justin fiercely in a tight hug. Justin melted into him, gripping him, fisting his hands into Aaron’s shirt, sobbing and almost wailing.

“I’m sorry”, he continued, “I really thought I’d done it! I had ne-never gotten this far, I… I-I thought… I’m sorry, forgive me!”

Aaron’s heart crushed inside every time Justin apologized ( _for what? what are you apologizing for, for fuck’s sake? it’s me that should be apologizing!_ ) and he tried to open his mouth to speak, but realized he was clenching his jaws so tight he could not pry his lips open.

“I’m sorry I dragged you in-into this! I’m sorry! Baby, what are we going to do?”

_He doesn’t know. He doesn’t know I got in. FUCK._

Justin looked up from Aaron’s chest, his eyes searching his face looking for the same despair to be mirrored in his face. He saw him clenching his jaws, his eyes brimming tears, but he found no despair, no evidence of hours of crying. He only saw fear. Aaron’s eyes were full of fear.

“Baby? Wha-… What…” A sudden weight dropped cold in Justin’s stomach and he felt his entire body prickling with pins and needles. “What did they say? What did they tell you?”

Aaron did not reply at once. He rubbed the tears out of his eyes with a hard motion and tried to put his arms around Justin once more, but he was pushed away into a weird kneeling position as Justin half-stood in front of him.

“What did they tell you?”

He cleared his throat. “Babe, I… I’m the one who’s sorry.”

Justin’s face scrunched up like a baby about to wail and he fell forward, landing on his hands and sobbing silently, the rocking motion making him look like a cat trying to cough up a fur ball.

“Baby, I want none of this if it’s not with you! You know the only reason I auditioned was because of you. You are my constant supporter and my most important inspiration, you know I don’t give a tiny fuck what some fucked-up producers think about me! I only want this with you by my side. I… I’ll tell them I’m not going. I’ll tell them I’m not going to do it. They can pick someone else. I’ll write them right now.”

Aaron started to get up, fully intending to reach their computer and type out an aggressive email, when he felt Justin tackle him and fall on top of him, his back flat on the dusty carpet.

“Don’t you fucking dare, Aaron Coady. Don’t you fucking dare.”

 

It had been a weird night. They had eventually made their way to the bed, almost crawling, dinner all forgotten, and Aaron spooned Justin through the night. At some point he felt his sobs quiet and heard his steady breathing. He reluctantly surrendered to sleep, only to be woken a couple of hours later by Justin’s loud sniffling. Aaron peppered Justin’s neck with kisses, and he felt him gripping his hand tightly to his chest. The cycle repeated itself several times. They did not say a word to each other. 

Aaron woke up suddenly with the full morning light on his face, and the bed empty next to him. His eyes quickly darted over to their closet and he saw all of Justin’s things still there. _Stop it with your stupid paranoia._ He slowly sat up and swung his feet onto the cold floor. They had gone to bed fully clothed, and he felt slightly ridiculous in his skinny black jeans, red graphic t-shirt, and leather jacket. He shrugged the jacket off and made his way out of the bedroom.

The enticing smell of pancakes led him to the kitchen, but he found it deserted. A plate with a huge stack of pancakes and chopped up bananas sat on top of the kitchen table. He went over to the sink and glanced out the back window to their little garden. Justin was there, still wearing yesterday’s clothes, weeding their small tomato vine. It was something Justin had insisted they have, completely convinced that they needed to start a gardening project to give their house more “home warmth”. Aaron had pretended to completely disagree with the idea, gleefully delighting in Justin’s pouts and smirking at his pleas. At the end he had given in, and they had plowed the earth and planted the tiny seeds together. Aaron bought Justin a cheap, childish green plastic watering can with the spout in the form of a sunflower at the dollar store. When the plant had yielded its first tiny tomato, scarcely the size of a plum, Justin had been beside himself with happiness. _He is all the home warmth I need._

He silently opened the back door and stepped out to the garden. Justin looked up at him, his messy hair looking almost chestnut in the sunlight, his hands full of dirt and weeds. Aaron’s heart lifted when he saw that despite the still-present puffiness of his eyes, he had a tiny smile on his lips. He made his way over to him and put his arms around him lovingly.

“I love you, Aaron. Nothing could change that.”

For the first time since he had passed the threshold of their front door the night before, Aaron cried. Big, salty tears dropped from his eyes to his lips and he was sobbing quietly. They stood hugging and crying in the sun for a long time, until Justin pulled back and looked him in the eyes, smiling playfully.

“Girl, you’re definitely gonna need some new wigs.”

 

* * *

 

“Don’t be.”

 

Aaron snapped out of his reverie at the sound of Justin’s warm voice. 

“Huh?”, he said, turning to look at Justin.

“I said, don’t be nervous. You’re a fierce bitch, these other hoes better watch out.”

Aaron smiled and leaned over to place a quick kiss on his cheek. Things had been rocky since that fateful night. They had both declared their love as ever-present, but Justin fully admitted he probably was not going to be able to fully control his mood swings, at least at first. He was not haughty about it, merely stated it as a fact. Aaron understood. After all, it had been the potential of jealousy that had pushed him to make his own audition video tape. _We’re drag queens. I would be the same in his situation._

They had swung from going wig-shopping together, to having crying episodes on the living room couch. From fantasizing together about Aaron snatching the crown, to Justin’s cold silence. From talking about the absolute joy it brought them to think about meeting RuPaul, to Aaron aggressively demanding of Justin if he wanted him to give up his spot after all. It had been the worst at first. As the weeks carried on, the waters had calmed down somewhat; although sometimes Aaron had still caught Justin staring at him with a hard glint in his eyes.

“I’m just gonna miss the shit out of you. What the fuck do you want me to feel?”, Justin had replied when Aaron had finally confronted him about it. That had led to yet another crying episode.

 

Back in the car, the cold silence was starting to melt as Justin gushed about how Aaron was going to be the most original queen of the bunch, hands down; and how he knew that Ru and Michelle always valued originality and personality. 

“You’ll see. You’re gonna make me so proud”, he said with a grin.

“I still think the idea we had for my entrance look might be stupid. You know that hat doesn’t fully fit me.”

“Then pin it down. You look hot in the dress and it doesn’t work without the hat.”

They chatted away the last miles to the airport, counting down the looks Aaron had planned and the brilliantness of his idea for Snatch Game. Before they knew it, they were crossing the entrance to the Pittsburgh International Airport and making their way to the drop-off zone. Aaron felt ready to vomit.

“I’m gonna barf on the plane.”

Justin shrieked with laughter and parked the car by the sidewalk, leaving the gear on and switching the blinkers on. They got out of the car, circling back to the trunk, where Aaron heaved out 5 huge suitcases and a small black carrier box with all of his make-up inside. He grabbed a trolley and they piled on the suitcases on top. Aaron stood with his arms at his sides looking at Justin, feeling stupid and scared.

A heavy silence threatened to rear its ugly head. Justin smiled and hugged him tightly.

“I love you”, Aaron croaked.

“I love you, Sharon Needles. I believe in you.”

Aaron clutched Justin’s shirt tightly in his fist and swallowed back the lump forming in his throat. _No tears. We promised, no tears._ He plastered a smile on his face and looked up to Justin.

“You come back with that crown”, Justin’s bottom lip was trembling, and Aaron saw he too was fighting back tears. “You come back. Come home to me.”

They kissed deeply, slowly, stretching out their last seconds together for all they were worth. With another tight hug, Aaron turned and pushed the trolley towards the main gate, braving one last look over his shoulder. Justin was standing next to the car, his hands covering his mouth, the sun behind him, a perfect vision of purity. He crossed the automatic doors as they opened.

“I love you!”, he heard Justin screaming before the doors slammed quickly shut behind him. He turned his head to scream back at him, but saw Justin already scrambling towards the driver’s seat, his eyes dripping with tears. He pushed forward to the check-in counters.

 

***

 

The flight passed by in a blur for Aaron. He refused the small packet of peanuts offered to him by the flight attendant and stared straight ahead at the little black screen in front of him for the entire trip, not even realizing how his nails were digging into his thighs.

 

At LAX, he quickly piled up his suitcases onto a trolley and made his way to the arrivals gate. He rapidly located a driver-type guy holding a sign that read “Aaron Cody”. _Really?_ Aaron approached him and the driver grinned briefly at him, before demanding he surrender his cellphone. Shocked, Aaron pulled it out of his pocket and handed it over. He had thought he at least would have been allowed to notify Justin he had arrived. 

By the time the little van dropped him off at the hotel, he was exhausted and already home-sick. He checked in and made his way to the elevators, sighing in relief when he finally entered his room. He scanned the room with his eyes and saw a large envelope with the RuPaul’s Drag Race logo on it, resting on the bed; but before opening it he ran to the telephone in his nightstand only to find it missing every key except the one for room service. _This is fucking stupid._

He dejectedly sat on the bed and opened the envelope. It contained a rough schedule for the first day of shooting, including at what time he had to be ready in the lobby. _Already in drag? Shit._ He hated going out in drag during the day time. A small letter inside invited him to order room service for that night’s dinner, but specifically stated that further room-service would have to be paid by him. It also reminded him of all the rules they were expected to adhere to now that the competition had officially started. “No outward contact” was underlined twice. _I’m sorry Ru, but FUCK THAT._

He quickly grabbed his card key and ran out of his bedroom, making his way to the elevators and pressing the “down” button every 2 seconds until the doors opened in front of him. He made his way to the lobby and searched for a payphone. Not finding any, he darted to the front door, resolving to run down the street until he found one.

He had not even taken two steps out of the hotel when a tall, heavy guy in a beard intercepted him.

“Hello? You can’t leave the hotel!” Aaron recognized him as probably a crew member. _Fuck, this is tighter than the fucking Pentagon._

“I’m sorry, I just need to tell my boyfriend that I made it over here safely!”, he breathed, feeling desperation constricting him.

The crew member stared at him, dumbfounded, before repeating “You can’t leave the hotel.”

“Oh come on! They took my cellphone away from me, I didn’t have a chance to check in with him! He’ll be worried! You don’t understand!”, Aaron pleaded, his hand closed around the man’s arm. “Please, you can walk with me, it’ll take me two minutes!”

The man stood silent, fidgeting on his feet. “You handed over your cellphone?”

“Yes! As soon as I landed!”

The man’s eyes shifted over to the corner, were a payphone stood. Aaron could feel his determination wavering.

“Please. Please! Two minutes!”

Sighing defeatedly, the man placed his hand on Aaron’s shoulder and walked with him towards the payphone. “One minute, or you’ll get me in trouble.”

Almost crying with relief, Aaron let himself be led to the payphone, searching his pocket for quarters. He quickly pushed them in and dialed Justin’s cellphone number. Justin picked up on the first ring.

“Hello? Hello? Aaron?”, Justin’s voice was like a shot of honey on a sore throat, and Aaron laughed happily.

“Baby! Baby, I love you! I love you! I’m in LA, they took away my phone! I needed to let you know I got here alright. They won’t let me speak long.”

“Aaron, I love you! I’m so proud of you”, Aaron could hear Justin’s sobs.

“I’ll be home soon. I won’t be able to call you again, but I’ll be home soon!”

Justin let out a sorrowful laugh, sniffling. “No, you won’t. You’re staying there for the full 13 episodes, do you fucking hear me, Aaron Coady?”

Aaron laughed through his own sobs as the crew member looked around nervously and tapped Aaron’s shoulder. “Wrap it up, wrap it up.”

“Baby, I have to go. I love you! I have to go!”

“Aaron? Aaron? Kill these hoes, baby! Aaron?”

 

The crew member snatched the phone out of Aaron’s hands and placed it firmly on its cradle. “I’m sorry, but we have to get back. They’ll chew me out for this.”

Aaron wiped the tears from his face and followed him back to the hotel, crestfallen. “Can I at least smoke a cigarette before you haul me back to my room?”

The crew member smiled. “Only if I can bum one.”

They stood next to the hotel entrance as Aaron retrieved his cigarettes and lighter from his pocket, offering one to the man before lighting one for himself.

“What’s your name?”, asked Aaron, after exhaling his first drag.

“Justin.”

Aaron gaped. “You’re kidding! That’s my boyfriend’s name!”

Justin smiled and shrugged. “Everyone calls me J.T.”

“I’m Aaron”, he extended his hand and J.T. shook it.

“I know. They made us memorize your names and faces. We have to do that every season.”

Aaron took a long drag before asking, “So is Ru hiring out of the Secret Service, or…?”

J.T. chuckled while exhaling. “We gotta keep it this tight. You wouldn’t believe some of the stunts some girls have pulled to sneak a phone call home. I suppose it’s understandable to get a bit of cabin fever.”

Aaron could believe it. He had been gone from home a meager 9 hours and he felt ready to go crazy.

 

Back at his room, he quietly ordered a grilled cheese sandwich for dinner over the phone, but found he could only nibble at a corner before feeling sick. He got out of his clothes and slid under the covers in only his briefs. At home, this was the time that him and Justin usually spent talking before dozing off to sleep, and he feared he was not going to be able to rest without that little ceremony. He tossed and turned for what felt like hours on end, his stomach a knot of nerves and longing. Finally, he ripped the duvet off him and sat at the small desk in front of his bed. He grabbed a pad and pen and started to write.

**Lasky,**

**I miss our nightly talks, and I can’t seem to fall asleep without ‘em. I’m excited, and nervous, and more than a little homesick. It’s crazy how much I miss you after just seeing you this morning. It was lovely to listen to your voice over the phone, although it just made me picture you at home with Cerrone, and I fucking ache. It makes me want to cry when I think about how it’ll be a long while before I can hear your voice again. I miss your body so much. Even though we spent these last few days fucking, I now wish I had fucked you some more. I wish I could kiss you right now.**

A tiny tear splashed on Aaron’s handwriting, but he kept scribbling.  
****

**I don’t want you to miss out on anything that happens here, so I’m gonna keep this as a journal. I’ll give it to you when I come home and we can relive this crazy experience together, the way it shoulda been. I swear I will make you so fucking proud of me. We will show the world who the Haus of Haunt is. I’m gonna do whatever it takes to win this thing, and change our lives. I’m gonna give you everything you deserve, everything I’ve always wanted you to have. You have given me everything I ever needed. It’s now my turn to take care of you. Everything’s gonna be different now, Lasky. I promise.**

 

Aaron re-read what he had wrote, adding the date at the top of the entry. Satisfied, he tucked the little pad under his mattress and crawled back into bed. Sleep found him soon after.

 

It seemed to him mere minutes after when the alarm jostled him out of a dreamless sleep, and he sleepily stepped into the shower. _Day one. Ready or not, here I come_. He washed his body carefully, patting himself dry with the towel. He stared at his reflection in the mirror, slowly shaving off his beard before reaching out to one of his suitcases and pulling out his padding, pantyhose, and all the fixings for his entrance look, including the hat Justin had loved so much. He swiped on his makeup carefully, thinking about him the entire time.

 

***

 

**P.S. I DROPPED THE FUCKING HAT, LASKY. IT FELL OFF MY HEAD AS I WAS GOING IN. I TOLD YOU IT DIDN’T FUCKING FIT!**


	2. Episode 1 (I)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Willam and Aaron bond over some greenery goodness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a slightly longer one - I have decided to break each day into a chapter. Episode 1 consisted of three days of shooting, and this takes place during the first one.
> 
> I would love to hear your comments! I hope you enjoy!

**I’m sorry, Lasky, but I REALLY have to let you have it for persuading me into wearing the hat when it didn’t even fit. It’s all good - they let me reshoot my entrance. I just hope they don’t stock up on footage of me for a fucking blooper reel to play during the reunion. Though if they do, it’ll probably be good. It’ll probably be the most camera time I get in the entire season.**

**THE WORK ROOM IS INSANE. It’s even bigger in person, and everything’s so new and shiny. I got my very own make up case with a lot of goodies inside. There’s mannequins all around so there’s definitely gonna be some sewing challenges. Kinda makes me nervous (more nervous) that I never did get around to learning how to sew, though I’ll probably be gone by the time those challenges come around.**  
****

**First day went alright. Miss Chad Michaels is here, can you believe it? She looks so freaky up close, I just want to stare at her face all day. Some of the girls seem alright, but they have already started sorta going at each other. This girl, Willam, she’s apparently famous or has been on TV or something, so she’s kinda stuck up about it. There are some definite pageant girls, yawn. We have 2 puerto ricans, one of them is most likely a biological female. SHE’S SO FISHY! She’s this tiny fireball of flat abdomen and face chiseled by the gods. I have never felt so out of place in my life, even back when we went into the Blue Moon thinking it was a drag bar.**  
****

**Seeing Ru was CRAZY. She is so stunning, even out of drag. She’s so tall and poised, and I could hear her speak for hours. The craziest thing - FUCKING SHANGELA CAME BACK! I almost choked when I saw her, coming out of that stupid box again! It was like a skit, the pit crew brought her in (Lasky, they are HOT, one of them is right up your alley), and Ru made this whole show of throwing her out back to make room for new queens. It was sorta funny in retrospect, but I swear for a second I thought she was really back and I was PISSED!**  
****

**Apparently the first episode is gonna be all apocalypse themed, and we had to pose for a photo shoot for the first mini challenge, as usual. We were given these huge, ridiculously puffy white gowns and had to stand on a rotating platform while the pit crew shot paint at us. If it sounds stupid it’s because it probably was. I didn’t win. But I did make Ru laugh. This girl, Jiggly, won. She seems nice, though I could see her getting a bit uncomfortable when I talked to her.**  
****

**They let us have exactly ONE cocktail. I’m craving a cold PBR. And I’m craving you. I gotta say, I’ve been having a little fun, being around so many queens, but there wasn’t a second during the day when I didn’t miss you. I just kept thinking about you and what you were doing. I sorta want to throw the whole thing just so I can go back home to you.**  
****

**I made you a promise though, Lasky. That I would make you proud and that I would get you a cruise. And I’m gonna try. Bring it on, pageant girls.**  
****

Three sharp knocks shook Aaron’s hotel room door at that moment and he could hear Willam’s voice. 

“Hey, open up, Needles!”

Aaron reluctantly dropped his pen and got up to open. As soon as he swung the door, Willam barreled through him into his room and sat on the bed.

“Yeah, please come in”, Aaron said, sourly.

“Alright Miss Thing, calm down”, Willam smiled up at him, and Aaron could see the TV-star quality radiating out of him. It made him jealous. He had never been one for cameras. He always felt he looked ridiculous in photos or film, with his plain face and that gap in his teeth. “I was fucking bored at my room and I remembered you were in the room next to me, and I thought I’d come hang with you until dinner time.”

“Can’t you just watch TV or something? I’m… sort of busy”, he chanced a look over at his little journal sitting on the desk, which he had not had time to hide.

Big mistake. Willam noticed and got up quickly, reaching for the desk before Aaron could stop him.

“Whatcha doing? Writing? Is it a script? Is there a part in there for me?”, he asked, laughing, while rifling through the pages scanning the text.

Aaron pushed him forcefully and ripped the pages out of his hands, tearing a page right down the middle. Willam let out a shriek and toppled over to the floor, laughing, while Aaron stood with the pages in his hands, feeling anger rising inside him.

“Oh, fuck off, bitch! Look what you did!”, Aaron snarled, looking down at the journal.

“Jesus, calm down, it’s just fucking paper. We can tape it back together”, Willam stood next to Aaron and tried to examine the sheets. Aaron pushed him again, less forcefully, and Willam laughed again and sat back on the bed.

“It’s just… it’s… I need it to be in one piece. It’s…”, Aaron stammered.

“What?”, Willam turned to him. “What is it, then?”

“It’s just… a journal.”

Willam brightened up. “I’m keeping a journal too!”

“You are?”

“Yes, for my hubby. I had to lie to him to come here.”

 

Aaron looked at him, confused. _Why do you have to lie? I would’ve never thought to lie to Justin… Even if I could’ve._ Willam read his face and smiled, “Well, you know we’re not supposed to tell anyone we’re here. He’s a blabbermouth, he would’ve told all our friends. It’s really annoying, although he does put his mouth to some other good uses.” He looked briefly at Aaron, flirty. “I saw my name in there”, he smiled again. “Are you writing about me? Are you getting a little crush?”

Willam was just too much to take, and Aaron wanted him gone. “No”, he replied coldly, putting the journal back on the desk and placing a towel on top. “I have a boyfriend. And I want to keep writing, so if you could… fuck off, that’d be great.”

“Alright”, Willam stood up, stretching, and made his way to the door. “I just thought maybe you’d like to share a little something”, he said, turning to Aaron and reaching into his pocket. A perfect blunt came up in his fingers. “You have that look. And I hate to smoke alone.”

Aaron’s heartbeat sped up a little. He had never been one for pot, what he really liked was cocaine and alcohol, but he was not going to get any of that any time soon. _Anything to take the edge off…_ He admitted to himself it sounded tempting, even if it came with having to be with Willam.

“Uh…”, Aaron cleared his throat, looking at his feet, trying to talk himself out of it. _If you get caught, you’ll be sent home. And what will you tell Justin?_ “I’m all for punk rock, but isn’t it a little too soon to start breaking the rules?”

“Suit yourself. I’ll just go ask Dida.”

Surprising himself, Aaron reached out for Willam and grabbed him by the arm. “Wait.”

Willam turned, smiling.

“You know you can’t smoke that in your room…”, he explained, hoping to talk him and himself out of it.

“Girl, please. It’s not my first time being holed up in a hotel. I used to do this all the time during shoots, we’ll go up to the roof. No one’s there at night time.”

Aaron fidgeted on the spot. 99% of him wanted to take a long drag out of that blunt, hoping it would relax his nerves. He had been on edge the entire day, partly because he was nervous about the mini challenge, and then about the next day’s main challenge reveal, and then the first elimination the day after that. He was nervous because he could see he stuck out of the group like a sore thumb. Even The Princess, who had the same edgy, punk, tattoo-ed up look, had a very tame drag and personality compared to his. Aaron knew he had “filler queen” written all over himself, and as much as he did not care about losing, he cared about Justin, and he wanted to do right by him and make him proud. He was nervous because he could tell the other girls were looking at him and thinking “Really? America must be running out of gay people”. And he was nervous because he was not with Justin.

 

He trusted him, really. He knew Justin was no wilting flower, but he trusted him. And everybody knew Aaron himself had been one to whore around in his earlier years. He had given it all up, though. He still remembered the exact promise he had made, holding both of Justin’s hands in his, the night they had moved in together.

 

* * *

 

 It was cold in Pittsburgh, although pretty standard for a March night. There was barely any snow left on the overgrown lawn, and he had decided not to light the fireplace. He did crank up the heater, though. _He’s been living in LA for so long… I don’t want him to be cold. This has to be perfect._

Aaron and Justin looked like little ants, trekking back and forth between Justin’s beat up car and the house, carrying boxes inside. Aaron knew probably 7 boxes out of 10 contained drag. He smiled. _If you had said to me a year ago that I would be moving in with another drag queen, you would’ve had to slap me twice._

 

Justin had set off driving from LA two days before with the break of dawn, crossing the entire width of California, Arizona, New Mexico, part of Oklahoma, and then up to Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, and had arrived in Pittsburgh with the dusk. He had barely stopped to sleep and had eaten while driving. Aaron had been beside himself with worry.

“You’re out of your mind if you think I’m gonna let you drive all the way here. It’s a two day drive, at best! Please, let me buy you a plane ticket”, he pleaded into the phone, stretched across his bed, in nothing but briefs and a Divine t-shirt.

Justin laughed from across the country and Aaron’s heart fluttered inside his chest. Justin’s laughter was like a baby’s, and he had fallen in love with it before he had even fallen in love with Justin. The night they had finally met he heard Justin laughing for the first time when he slipped on a patch of ice and fell on his ass, noisily dropping the plastic bag full of beer he was bringing back to the party. His laughter was so incredibly sweet, he pretended his butt cheeks did not feel like they were going to be black and blue the next day, just so he would not worry and stop laughing. He was pretty certain that was the moment he had decided he was going to kiss him before the night ended. He had spent the rest of the party trying to make Justin laugh, and succeeding. Every time he gurgled up that adorable bubbling giggling, Aaron felt himself going a little more smitten. By the time he suggested they step out to the backyard under the pretense of smoking, even though everybody was smoking inside the house, the pain in his bottom was all but forgotten, and Justin’s cheeks were pink from laughter. They had stared into each other’s eyes for a full minute before Justin finally bridged the distance between their lips. And they kissed. And kissed. And kissed.

“You know perfectly well neither of us has money for a plane ticket, and besides! I could never fit all my drag into one suitcase. I’m not leaving any of that behind.”

“I’ll get the money, please! We can fedex all your boxes later. I just don’t want you to be alone. What if the car broke down? What if it’s at night? What if you get lost?”, Aaron was anxious just thinking about the possibilities.

“And what if you were to stop it with your fucking wishful thinking and just pretend to be happy at the fact that we’re gonna be living together?”, Justin laughed again.

“I don’t need to pretend, you know that.”

“Then what is it?”, Justin’s voice pitch had changed completely, and he sounded genuinely worried. “Aaron, are you having second thoughts, is that it? Do you want to stall this trip by pretending to come up with the money for a plane ticket? Do you think I’m gonna get put off by some waiting and call the whole thing off?”

“Stop! You’ve literally never said more nonsense in your entire life. You have no idea how it gets at nights, wishing you were here. It’s all I want!”, Aaron’s heart was racing again. _Calm yourself down, idiot. Don’t fucking ruin the best thing that’s happened to you._

“Then what is it?”, Justin asked again.

“I just…”, Aaron faltered. A tight silence stretched across the phone lines. “I’m just worried something will happen to you. This is all too good to be true. I just keep having this vision of you stranded somewhere along the fucking bible belt and it makes me want to puke. I can’t allow anything bad to happen to you. If something were to happ…”, his throat closed and he had to swallow hard to carry on. “I just can’t deal. I don’t know what I would do.”

 

A few seconds passed in silence, but to Aaron they felt like years. Finally, Justin let out a throaty, low laugh that was one of the sexiest things Aaron had ever heard.

“You’re being silly. I’m a big boy. And remember, I already made this trip once. It was fine. I just don’t want to fucking wait anymore. I’m fucking sick of waiting. I’m fucking tired of missing you everyday, I’m tired of not sharing everything with you. This fucking city is suddenly hideous to me. I hate everyone here, and I know it’s only because I’m not with you. I’m actually fucking surprised you can’t hear my heart breaking all the way to Pittsburgh every fucking second of every day. I don’t want to be without you anymore. I’ve fucking had it.”

Aaron pressed the phone to his chest and sighed in utter happiness. _I’m not crazy. He feels it too. Stop being so afraid._ He put the phone to his ear again.

“Alright, you hot piece of ass. Get that butt over here already.”

 

And so Justin had pushed all the boxes into his car, until nothing more could fit in but himself in the driver’s seat, and he made the 36-hour trip to Pittsburgh. Aaron had stayed by the phone, ready to run out at the first sign of trouble. He would borrow Cherri’s car and drive to wherever Justin was. He tried to distract himself by watching Golden Girls and chain-smoking his way through two entire packs in the first 6 hours, but his anxiety was in full terrorist mode. At some point he had left the house to buy all the fixings to cook Justin dinner when he arrived, and when he returned he realized he had left two whole bags at the shopping cart back at the store. It had not been until Justin phoned from just outside Chicago that he was able to breathe properly again. He had spent the last two hours sitting on the porch, looking anxiously down the street whenever he heard a car’s engine. 

They had almost finished up carrying boxes inside, when Aaron noticed the left back tire of the car. It was flat.

“Justin. Did you even notice you had a fucking flat tire?”, he tried to sound stern, but he was smiling.

Justin looked up from the box he had just put down inside the living room and smiled sheepishly. “I did. I just didn’t want to stop. I wanted to be here.”

 

Aaron dropped the last box on the couch and shut the front door, shaking his head and laughing. He stood, turning to Justin, ready to scold him. He looked beyond adorable standing in the middle of the living room, his big eyes shiny from the cold, every bit the part of the boy who is about to get a lecture from the headmaster of the school. It was all too much, and Aaron took a run at him, and Justin shrieked and turned, trying to flee. Aaron chased him around the living room, then into the kitchen, back into the living room, and finally into the bedroom, both of them gasping with laughter as Aaron tackled him and they fell on the bed. _Our bed._

“I should really kill you right now. You know how worried I was! Do you even know how dangerous it is to drive with a flat tire?”, Aaron was on top of him, pinning him down, trying to sound serious and failing terribly.

Justin bit his lip and raised his eyebrows at him. “Whatcha gonna do? You gonna spank me?”

They forgot all about dinner and unpacking.

 

It was warm and soft and comfortable under the covers as Aaron cuddled Justin to his chest, Justin sitting between his legs, pressing his naked back gently onto him. They looked out the foggy window into the night outside in silence, Aaron’s hands stroking Justin’s arms slowly and delicately. 

“I just get this feeling”, Justin suddenly spoke up, placing his hand on Aaron’s thigh, “that this is where our life starts.”

Aaron enveloped him in his arms and hugged him tightly, kissing the crook of his neck over and over, feeling himself getting choked up with emotion. Justin turned to face him and kissed him deeply, Aaron’s skin breaking out in goosebumps as he felt their naked chests pressed together.

“Do you know what I mean?”, Justin asked when they finally parted. “I feel like everything up to the night we met was just me getting ready to be with you. All the shit I’ve done… All the times I’ve fucked up. It doesn’t matter anymore. It just put me where I had to be, that night. With you.”

Aaron’s eyes clouded over with tears, but he did not wipe them. He let them fall, and Justin leaned over and kissed them away.

“Don’t be sad.”

Aaron laughed sorrowfully. “I’m not sad. I couldn’t be happier. I just feel the same way.” Justin sat cross-legged in front of him and Aaron took both his hands into his. “Justin, I am a poorly made man. I can’t pride myself on any good attributes. I’m a high school drop-out, I’ve been addicted to bad shit, I drink almost everyday and I like blow. I’ve whored around, I’ve hurt people. I’ve hurt my family. You know all this. You know because I’ve bared myself to you, like I never expected to bare myself to anyone, ever. And you know I’m probably not going to change. Five years from now, ten years from now, fifty years from now, I’ll still be the same redneck, addict, hurtful asshole piece of shit I’ve always been.” He was crying again, but Justin looked at him with those immaculate blue eyes, and he forced himself to continue. “And so I can’t promise you I’ll change. But I can promise you to love you, and to be true to you, always. Every day. Because you make me feel this way. I promise, Justin.”

Justin smiled up at him again, and leaned in to kiss him. They kissed and cuddled for hours, Aaron tickled Justin until he cried, Justin draped his long legs over him while spooning, they intertwined their fingers together time and time again, and they were still up when the sun broke through the horizon. It was the happiest day in Aaron’s life.

 

He never forgot that Justin made no promises, though.

 

* * *

 

“So what’s it gonna be, Needles?”, Willam waved the blunt in front of him again and grinned. 

Aaron snapped back to reality, suddenly craving to feel that sweet smoke down his throat, and he snatched the blunt out of Willam’s hand.

“Alright, hot shot. Lead the way.”

 

They made their way to the elevator, Aaron feeling even more nervous than when he used to play truant in junior high. He was aware of the childishness of his anxiety, but he could not help himself. When the elevator doors finally swung open, a tall guy with a purple mohawk stepped out and smiled at them. He had an incredibly rugged handsome face and deep honey-colored eyes, and Aaron could see a tattoo of intricate flames crawling out of the left sleeve of his t-shirt all the way down to his wrist. Willam was all poses and flirty smiles.

“Oh, hello honey!”, he called out as the man exited the elevator and leaned excessively into Aaron even though there was plenty of space on the other side. His eyes lingered on him and Aaron felt himself grow red in the face. “Where are you going, why so shy?” Willam continued, as the man started down the hall, looking over his shoulder at Aaron and ignoring Willam. “Now I know what floor the cute guys are staying at!” Willam shouted as the man continued walking and Aaron pulled him into the elevator, quickly pressing the button to the top floor. Thankfully, the doors closed almost immediately.

“What the fuck is the matter with you? Do you want to get assaulted?”, Aaron asked as the elevator made its way upwards quickly.

“Oh girl, he’s definitely gay. I can smell it on them. And he was definitely into you. I don’t mind sharing.”

“Didn’t you say you have a husband?”, Aaron chuckled in spite of himself.

“Well, he’s not here, is he?”, Willam grinned, and Aaron could not help but laugh.

 

They made their way to the top floor through the stairs hiding behind the vending machine on the last room floor, and Willam pushed the door to the roof open, expertly holding it in place with a large brick.

“There’s always a brick”, he winked at Aaron.

The view from the top was breathtaking, and Aaron paused to look at the horizon, taking in the glittering lights of cars and street lamps down below. They sat comfortably between two doors leading to machine rooms and Willam lit up the blunt. He took a long drag, his body almost quivering with pleasure, and quickly took another one before even exhaling.

“Alright, puff puff pass, come on”, Aaron urged him and Willam laughed, expelling all the smoke from his lungs and getting a coughing attack. He gave the blunt to Aaron, who took it laughing.

“Fucking amateur.”

He had not intended to smoke the entire blunt, but that they did. With every drag, he felt himself relaxing and setting back into a comfortable chatter with Willam. _He’s not too bad._

“So who do you think will be the first to go?”, asked Willam, taking a long drag out of the almost entirely gone blunt.

"Oh, don’t start with that shit”, Aaron’s face scrunched up in displeasure. “We were having such a lovely time.”

“What? It’s a competition, bitch. Someone’s gotta go first. I bet it’s gonna be that Lashauwn person.”

Aaron chuckled, his head buzzing pleasantly. “ _That Lashauwn person_? Could you be more condescending?”

“Didn’t you hear her talking with Latrice? She’s been doing drag for all of 15 seconds. Her make-up was all botched and she could barely stand in those heels. Bitch has to go!”, Willam smoked the last of the blunt almost into his fingers and dropped what was left of the paper on the floor.

“I think it’s pretty obvious it’s gonna be me”, Aaron said quietly.

Willam turned to look at him with wide eyes. “You’re kidding, right?”

“Nope. All day long I’ve felt like back in kinder-garden, you remember those fucking stupid exercises, ‘one of these is not like the others’? I’m the thing that’s not like the others.”

“And that’s exactly why you’re not going home anytime soon”, Willam stretched and reclined back on his outstretched arms, his legs straight in front of him. “Trust me, if there’s something this show doesn’t need any more of, it’s those Lashauwns and Alisas and Milans. Bitches are ten a penny.”

Aaron considered this and looked out to the city below them.

“Besides”, Willam continued, “judging by today, I can tell tomorrow we’re gonna be told we have to dress up like fucking nuclear bomb survivors or some shit like that. You know, skin burnt off, one eye falling out of its socket. Tell me that’s not right up your alley, Miss I Showed Up Dressed As A Fucking Witch.”

Aaron chuckled and swung forward, falling on the floor in a fetal position. “I don’t fucking know. I don’t even know why I got on the show.”

Willam groaned. “Ugh, you’re starting to sound just like Lashauwn. Quit it.”

 

They stayed like that, breathing in the night air and letting the buzz sweep over them, before happily making their way back, thinking about dinner. They joined the others just as they were finishing up their first round at the buffet in a small private room beside the hotel’s main restaurant.

“And where have you been?”, Chad asked them, eyebrows raised.

“I visited Needles and we just got to talking”, Willam replied, his eyes half-closed and a sleepy grin on his face as he started shoveling chili into his mouth.

Aaron could feel Chad’s eyes scrutinizing him as he stared down at his bowl of mac and cheese, but he ignored it. His brain was still numb and foggy and he wanted to enjoy it without worrying about Chad’s disapproval.

From across the table, Dida snorted out a laugh, finishing up his own bowl of chili. “Next time, at least make sure to extend the invitation to everyone.”

“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean”, Willam replied, getting up to get a second bowl.

 

Aaron had 3 bowls of mac and cheese before feeling ready to burst, and he slowly made his way out of the small dining hall and up to his room, Willam sliding into the elevator with him before the doors closed. They stared at each other for a few seconds before bursting out in giggles, and then laughed even harder when they realized they had not pressed the button to their floor.

Finally back in his room, Aaron stripped clumsily out of his clothes and fell on the bed. The duvet and pillow felt incredibly soft under his body, and he felt almost happy. With a jolt, he remembered his unfinished journal entry, but decided he was too high to attempt to finish it. A pang thrummed in his chest as his mind wandered back to Justin, and the distance between them. He closed his eyes and got quick flashes of a night he wished he could forget. The night when he shattered the living room mirror to a million pieces. He saw his hands, running with blood, and felt the searing pain in his palms, and heard Justin’s sobs mixed with his own.

_No. Stop right now. And go the fuck to sleep._

He wrapped the covers around him and returned to a fetal position.

 

_I’ll finish the entry tomorrow. I will._


	3. Episode 1 (II)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's day 2 of filming Episode 1 - and Aaron gets some much needed wisdom from Latrice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tiny disclaimer: I think I have a pretty good grip on Sharon and Alaska's relationship's timeline, but I may mess up unintentionally or intentionally to fit my narrative. In the words of Alaska herself, "If you see a flaw... squint", and suspend your disbelief. It's fanfiction! :)
> 
> Also: Whenever Sharon is in drag I refer to her as "she" - the rest of the time it's "he". I've also decided to use the queens' drag names for clarity even when they're out of drag, as I believe we're all more familiar with those than their boy names. Within the narrative, some queens may refer to each other by their boy names at certain points, as Chad does here, whenever I feel it fits their character.
> 
> Thank you for reading, and I hope you enjoy!

Sharon climbed clumsily into the van that was going to get them back to the studio, clutching the plastic bag full of the things she had managed to pillage from the drag queen zombies. Her feet were killing her; she had not expected to be running around in heels, and she was still getting used to such tall shoes. Walking in heels had never been her forte, and there had not really been any need for her to learn to strut in them, since she never took place in any pageants or things of that nature. Her drag only called for her to be able to stand on a stage in them, and some times not even stand, depending on the alcohol level in her blood. She felt incredibly self-conscious now, having seen pretty much every other queen walking and even running in them without breaking a sweat.

She scooted down the seat to make room for the other queens and started examining the contents of her bag with more care. By the end, she had just started grabbing everything within her reach, hoping to snatch some good treasures. She really hoped so.

Latrice sat down next to her and Sharon ventured a glance at her bag. It seemed fuller and with more quality content. A pang thrummed in her chest. _That’s enough of that. Just fucking work with it, even if it’s a bag full of shit. Make the best of it._

All the other queens quickly filled the van and began chatted animatedly about the upcoming challenge. Of course, Sharon had been vaguely aware of the nature of it, because of the list the producers had provided beforehand so she could pack accordingly. The title for this episode and challenge was ambiguous enough that she only had been able to deduce that they were going to be armageddon survivors or something of the nature. The female voice in her head, ever present, had whispered: _Fuck surviving. We’re already dead. They want to see what Sharon Needles would look like after the end of the world? She’d be even deader._ She had been spot on. _Thank fuck I brought my bald cap._

Latrice turned to look at her and poked her. “Are you alright, sweetheart?”

Sharon turned to look at her and tried to perk up a little to conceal her nervousness. “Yes, mama. Why?”

“You’re gripping that bag so hard it’s like it just told you your momma is a hoe”, Latrice replied before shrieking with laughter, and Sharon was sure she saw Alisa’s head in the seat in front of her bob up and down, laughing silently.

There was something deeply comforting in Latrice’s voice and laughter, and Sharon smiled in spite of herself. “To be honest, I’ve been a nervous wreck ever since I stepped onto the plane to get here. No, even before that.”

Jiggly piped up from the front, “Girl, we’re all on edge. You wanna hear the worst of it? I can’t sew a stitch to save my life.”

Latrice turned to look at Sharon with knowing eyes that seemed to say: _Guess we know who’s lip-synching tomorrow._ Sharon attempted a complicit smile, but her brain was spinning in alert mode. _So soon… So soon into the competition, a sewing challenge… Guess I will be the first to go after all._

She hated being so self-defeating, specially because of the personality she had developed for her drag persona back in Pittsburgh. Back home, she did not care at all about what other queens thought about her, even her sisters from the Haus of Haunt. There had been times when Veruca had questioned her entire outfit minutes before a show, and she had planted herself firmly on that stage and proven to her and everybody at the club why she had been born to perform. She seeked approval from no one, some times not even from Alaska. Her integrity as an artist was the only real thing that was hers and hers alone, and she had never cared about being a loser. But this was different. This was the Olympics of Drag. These were seasoned entertainers, all at the top of their game in their respective hometowns. Some of the queens even had budding fame on their own merits. If the producers had gone scouting for talent in Pittsburgh, no one would have even thought of mentioning her name to them. Everything about this situation reeked of failure, and for the first time in her life she could not handle it.

The rest of the queens carried on talking about the upcoming challenge and the thrill of having seen past contestants amongst the zombies, but Sharon could not participate in the conversation. Willam had been right, this entire challenge was practically custom-made for her, but she felt a pit at the bottom of her stomach and she was sure it would never go away. Her right leg kept bouncing up and down, rubbing into Latrice’s thigh, but she paid it no mind. She concentrated on looking out the window, taking in whatever small snippets of Los Angeles she could, and trying to picture Justin’s life here, before they met. _Would this be some place he frequented? Is his essence lingering somewhere here still?_

 

By the time the van pulled up beside the studio entrance and all the queens grabbed their bags to exit, she had managed to work her stomach into a knot and could not face the idea of even attempting to have some lunch. Her hands shaky and cold with sweat, she grabbed her bag and was the last to jump out of the van. She did not even see Latrice standing by the van until she pulled her aside.

“Listen, boo…”, Latrice started, staring right into her with those lovely chocolate eyes that seemed so matronly. “I can tell you’re scared. It’s normal to be. But can I give you some advice? Feel free to not take it, because we don’t really know each other, but I just need to say it because I think you need to hear it.”

Latrice paused to give Sharon the opportunity to protest, buts she merely nodded mutely. She continued, “Don’t let these girls see you sweat. There are some hungry bitches here, the kind that would love to jump at any hint of insecurity they see in you and attack you for it. I can tell, because I’ve dealt with that kind my entire life. It’s not easy being a large black queen. But I turned my biggest ‘flaw’ into a strength and I’m proud of my size. Do I still have bad days? Sure. Does it pummel my confidence to see girls like Willam walk in here feeling like they own the world? Of course it does. But I would never let it show. To the world, nothing scares me, and it messes with their head. And you need to make sure everyone feels the same way about you.” Latrice smiled kindly at her and placed her hand on Sharon’s arm. “I know you don’t see it, but you intimidate these bitches.”

Sharon guffawed, shaking her head. “Yeah, because I’m spooky as hell.”

“No”, Latrice gave her arm a squeeze, “Because they have never seen art like yours, and they don’t quite know how to attack it. Just wait. They’re gonna start going at you soon. They’re gonna want to crawl into your brain and fill you with doubt. Don’t let ‘em. I don’t ever wanna hear you voice your insecurities in front of these hoes ever again. Ever. I mean it!”

Sharon stared at Latrice, feeling the knot in her stomach untangle slowly. She shook her head, more slowly. “You know, you’re the second girl here to say something along those lines to me, and I’ve only been here three days.”

“Two queens in three days. Imagine what you’ll be able to do to the world in 13 episodes.”

 

***

 

The sky was completely black by the time they sauntered out of the studio and into the van, completely exhausted and jittery. _Tomorrow’s the first elimination… I’m not going home. I am NOT going home. No fucking way._ _No way am I letting Elvira see me getting eliminated._

Aaron had felt his usual confidence start to take over the minute they had stepped back into the work room and started working on their outfits. Latrice’s words had been playing on loop inside his brain the entire time, and he felt good about the outfit he was putting together. He had even caught some of the queens eyeing his mannequin, some of them with obvious scorn, but a few of them with interest. At some point, Chad had even approached him and admired the cut of his dress, commenting on how it was virtually impossible to see it was all mostly hot-glued together.

His walk-through with Ru had gone better than he expected, and he seemed to buy Aaron’s concept. He was slightly worried that the entire idea might not translate completely on the runway, but at the end of day he only cared about looking like a zombie and making them gasp. _That’s what Sharon Needles fucking is. Freak ‘em out._

Some of the others sat dejectedly all the way to the hotel, and Aaron knew why. The Princess and Lashauwn had done particularly bad during their walk-throughs. The Princess had decided last minute to completely re-do his outfit, and Aaron cringed at the mere idea. Whereas the rest of them had only relatively minor adjustments to make the next day, The Princess had most of his work still to do. Aaron had seen him stuffing a large piece of fabric into his backpack before leaving the work room. _It’s gonna be a long night for him._

 

They were all starving by the time they made it back to the hotel, and they hopped off the van and made a straight line to dinner, except Willam. When Dida turned to ask if he was not going to dinner, Willam took off at a run.

“I’m not hungry!”, he yelled without turning back, making a quick approach to the elevator and pushing the button insistently.

“What’s that about?”, Dida turned to Jiggly.

Jiggly rolled her eyes and continued walking to the private eating area, where a bunch of the queens were already lining up with plates at the buffet area. “God knows. Milan is staying in the room next to him and mentioned something about being able to hear Willam arguing with someone the first night we arrived. He seems shifty to me.” Aaron had lined up directly behind them, and busied himself inspecting the available trays, not seeing any vegetarian options. He could feel Jiggly’s eyes on him, but was adamant to ignore it. He did not want any of them prying into what they had been up to the night before. He had started to feel confident about his performance so far, and he did not want to be disqualified over a little pot smoking.

“You’re staying next to Willam too, aren’t you, Needles?”, Dida asked, pushing beef stew onto her plate.

“Yep.” He did not elaborate, instead spooning a heap of french fries out of the tray directly in front of him.

“And?”, Jiggly insisted, “Did you hear anything? Was someone in his room?”

“Nope, didn’t hear a thing”, he clumsily grabbed a BLT with his fingers and placed it on top of the fries, desperate to get out of the interrogation line. Finally, he reached out for a juice box and turned on the spot, approaching the nearest table and sitting down. Chad was digging into a chicken salad and eyed Aaron’s plate suspiciously.

“I thought you were a vegetarian”, he said, pointing at the BLT.

“I am, I’ll just pick off the bacon.”

“You know”, Chad started, picking apart a big piece of chicken, “It would do those two a lot of good to start worrying more about their own stuff than about Willam’s private business.”

Aaron smiled silently, lifting bits of bacon with his fingers and placing them on a napkin. He had seen Jiggly’s outfit and he thought it looked more like City Dump Couture than post-apocalyptic. He looked up at Chad and wondered.

“Do _you_ know what’s going on with Willam?”, he asked.

“I might”, Chad stuffed a big spoonful of salad into his mouth and stared at Aaron. “Not here”, he said after a few seconds, and Aaron knew not to press the matter further.

He had barely started digging into his bacon-less BTL sandwich when he saw The Princess quickly getting up and walking briskly out of the buffet, his hand still holding a large piece of pepperoni pizza.

“Poor Adam”, said Chad, poking his own juice box with a straw. “I bet he’s gonna be up all night trying to sew something together.”

Aaron was surprised at how confident he felt. Something inside him had shifted. It might have been Latrice, it might have been the fact that he felt he had bonded with Ru over his Tammy Faye tattoo ( _I’ve now managed to make Ru laugh TWICE, they can put that on my fucking tombstone_ ), or the perspective of meeting Elvira in the flesh the following day, but he was feeling the calmest he had felt thus far in the competition. For the first time since he had arrived, the food he was putting in his mouth did not taste like carton.

“I feel like a fucking teenager with this bullshit cafeteria food”, Phi Phi was complaining to Kenya as they sat down directly in front of Chad and Aaron. “I mean, what the fuck is this? These fries look gross.”

Aaron grabbed a handful of his own fries and put them in his mouth before replying, “Why did you put them on your plate, then?”

Phi Phi turned to look at him like he was an insect at a particularly gnarly museum exhibit. “Not much else to chose from.”

Aaron could feel Chad mentally rolling his eyes so hard he almost choked up on his fries. They quickly finished their meal and left the table, leaving Phi Phi to tell Kenya how he felt both their outfits were the strongest ones in the work room. As they exited the private area, Chad grabbed Aaron’s arm with a strong hand and mocked fainting while groaning.

“I can’t deal with these entitled young things. We haven’t even completed one challenge and he’s already so done with all of us.”

“Yeah, I can tell he’s gonna be fun to be around”, Aaron chuckled, reaching into his pocket for his cigarettes. “Fancy a smoke?”, he asked, offering the open packet to Chad.

Chad declined with a polite hand gesture. “I don’t smoke. And I’d keep you company, but I’m feeling really yucky and can’t wait to shower. See you tomorrow!”, he said with a smile as he turned towards the elevators.

Aaron started walking to the hotel entrance, and he saw J.T. standing just outside the doors, smoking and typing on his cellphone. He brightened up and stood next to him, lighting his cigarette.

“I swear I’m not attempting to flee again, don’t tackle me”, he joked, exhaling a cloud of smoke.

J.T. smiled and put his cellphone into his back pocket. “Thank you, I wasn’t looking forward to manhandling you tonight.”

“Are you always on bouncer duty?”

J.T. shrugged while taking a drag. “I guess they want the biggest and meanest guy at the door.”

“I can tell you’re a big softie inside. You were easily moved by my fake tears the other night.”

They laughed together, and Aaron dared a glance at the familiar payphone down the street. “Did you get in trouble for that?”

“Nah. I guess everyone was more occupied with getting all of you to the hotel without incidents, I don’t think anyone even noticed.” J.T. saw Aaron looking over to the payphone and chuckled. “Don’t think you’re gonna get me again, now that you’ve admitted those were fake tears.” He looked at Aaron and narrowed his eyes in a way that made him feel like he was being x-rayed. “How are you feeling now?”

Aaron sighed and flicked his cigarette, dropping ashes at his feet. “Better. I’m still homesick, but I’m feeling alright. I guess it’ll get easier from now on.” There was a slight inflection to his voice that could have made the statement a question, and J.T. picked up on it.

“In my understanding, it comes and goes. My advice to you would be, try to make the most of it. I’ve seen some of you aching to get home, only to be completely heartbroken when they get their wish. Just enjoy your time here, have fun. Whatever happens now, everything will be totally different when you do get back. Don’t waste a second of it.”

Aaron stared at J.T. with a playful smile on his lips, and J.T. grinned and shrugged again.

“You’re just like a big, wise spiritual counselor, aren’t you?”

“I’ve been here since season one. After four years of dealing with breakdowns, you pick up a thing or two.”

 

Aaron ended up smoking three more cigarettes in J.T.’s company. He had an aura of complete and utter level-headedness, and Aaron lapped it up. By the time he returned to his hotel room, he was feeling a lightness inside, and it filled him with excitement. Sighing with contentment, he sat at the small desk and picked up his journal. Re-reading his last entry, he decided to start a new one without mentioning the pot incident from the night before. He had a paranoid flash of the producers going through his things and reading this, looking for incriminating evidence. Decidedly, he turned a new page and wrote the date on top.

**Lasky,**

**You won’t BELIEVE who’s gonna be here tomorrow with the judges. FUCKING ELVIRA!!! I’m so excited I can barely think straight. Everything has sorta turned in the past 24 hours. I’m feeling good. They finally announced the main challenge, and it is what we were thinking it was. I’m gonna go out there guns blazing, with my bald cap on and the fake blood in my mouth. They’re gonna gag, I know it.**

**We had to scavenge the materials for our runway look today from a group of drag queen zombies. I swear everything sounds so stupid when I write it down, but it was actually a lot of fun. Some of the zombies were queens from past seasons, and I got a little star-struck. Raven was there, and she is just incredibly beautiful. THAT FACE. IT IS BEAT. TO. THE. GODS. I kinda wanted to go back and tell her how we were rooting for her, but the producers didn’t let us go back. I had a good chat with one of the girls, Latrice, and I’ve been feeling so much calmer since then. I also talked to Ru during the walk-through today, and he noticed my tattoo and we talked about Tammy Faye. It’s fucking surreal, being in the work room, talking with fucking RuPaul about Tammy Faye Baker. He seemed to like my outfit and I like the way it’s turning out. Some of the other queens didn’t do so well, and one of them has to re-do her entire outfit from scratch after what Ru told her. I gotta say, it shouldn’t make me feel good, but it does. I feel like everything might turn out okay and I might not be the first one to go. The only thing that would make everything even better would be to have you here with me.**  
****

Aaron felt his heart racing inside his chest, and a sense of bittersweet emotion filled him. He wanted nothing more than to be able to see Justin’s face, just one second, to see him light up with pride at how well he was managing. Just one second to look into those gorgeous blue eyes that still made him weak in the knees. Just one tiny moment, one millisecond to kiss his warm lips and make himself feel whole again. A moment, just a heartbeat, just a second to feel Justin’s arms around him, gripping him so tightly, happy-sobbing into his shoulder like he did when they got the first call back from the producers.

 

* * *

 

 

It had been a few weeks since Aaron had mailed his video tape audition at the last possible minute, and they still had not heard anything back. For Justin this was pretty standard and Aaron was incredibly jealous at how well he seemed to be managing it. He hated to admit it, but a part of him had hoped they would get acknowledged, even if they did not make the cut. He would feverishly check his e-mail inbox 10, 15, 20 times a day. He was reluctant to discuss it with Justin, not wanting to break his spirit, although at times it seemed it was unbreakable.

“It’s fine”, Justin had casually responded once when Aaron had reiterated that there was no way they were going to get a call back. “If it’s not this year, it’s not. I’m not gonna stop auditioning.”

Aaron had gone back to stirring his pot of noodles silently, not pressing the topic. He had a deep admiration for Justin’s resilience and hope. He could not yet understand why this was so important to him, apart from the money. He desperately wanted to tell him that he did not need validation from anyone, that he should not seek it so hard, that this casting did not matter and did not say anything about his value as a performer. Sometimes it got so bad that he had wanted to grab him by the arms and physically shake him, screaming “I LOVE YOU! YOU DON’T NEED ANYBODY ELSE’S APPROVAL! YOU HAVE MINE!”

Was that it? Was the resentment that Aaron felt at Justin’s insistence with auditioning nothing but jealousy at the fact that he felt he valued some strangers’ recognition above his, his live-in boyfriend?

 

But try as he might, it was getting to him, too. He had started waking up in the middle of the night, heart racing, confused at where he was. His dreams had been getting more and more repetitive: they had gotten the e-mail, both of them, they were both in the cut, they were going to be on the show, both of them, it was all happening, it was coming true, for both of them… And he would invariably wake up with a jolt, cursing himself for daring to hope. Every day that passed without news was a lash across his back, and he felt as if an invisible hand was choking him ever tighter because he could not share it with Justin. 

It had finally got to be too much when a full month had passed and he checked his empty inbox. A sudden surge of rage flashed inside him, and he angrily closed the browser and went into the kitchen to grab a beer, slamming the fridge shut with so much force a couple of magnets flew to the floor. He did not pick them up, instead opening the can and chugging half of it, making his way to the living room. He saw Justin standing out on the sidewalk, talking to his mom on his cellphone. _I don’t understand why the fuck he needs to step out every time he calls home. Does he not want her to know I’m fucking here? It’s my fucking house._

They had been living together for well over a year and it pained him that he had never met Justin’s parents. Their relationship was by no means a secret to their families, but all the holidays had come and gone and the matter of inviting someone over had not even been discussed. It had not bothered Aaron at the time, he had been thrilled about spending Thanksgiving and Christmas alone with Justin, getting drunk and doing lines and fucking, but a few months after the fact it had started gnawing at the back of his brain. He knew a big part of it stemmed from the fact that this was the first relationship he had ever had where he saw a future. He was in it for the long haul with Justin, he had no problem envisioning spending the rest of his life with him, growing old and wrinkly and still doing drag together. But whenever he thought about it, he could not help but feel that maybe he was taking the relationship more seriously than Justin. Why else had they not even talked about meeting each other’s families?

He seethed throughout the entire beer can, crushing it in his hand and throwing it on the floor when he emptied it. He sat on the living room couch, blowing air out of his nose so hard he felt the neighbors would be able to hear him. He only felt his mood growing sourer when he heard Justin saying his goodbyes as he climbed the stairs up to their front door, and entering the house as he hung up.

“My mom says hi”, he said, closing the door behind him.

“Does she? That’s nice. Would be even nicer to hear her actually saying it to me once in a fucking while.”

Justin stopped mid-step and turned to look at Aaron sitting on the couch, noticing the empty beer can on the floor. He bent down to pick it up and turned to him again.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means what it fucking means. Was I not speaking English?”

Justin stared at him, brow furrowed, and turned silently to the kitchen to put the can in the bin. Aaron noticed he also bent down to pick up the magnets and placed them back on the fridge, and for some reason this action made him even angrier.

“I just asked you a question, was I not speaking English? Would it be too much fucking trouble to answer me?”

Justin made his way back into the living room and stood in front of Aaron, arms halfway stretched to his sides, palms up, a puzzled expression on his face.

“What’s going on? I step out to call my mom, come back inside, and it’s like I’ve walked into a completely different dimension.”

“Why do you always do that? Step out. Why can’t you call her from inside the house? Are you ashamed of me or something?”

Justing gave out a little incredulous chuckle and Aaron saw red. He stood up. “I’m sorry, did I fucking say something funny? Is the fact that my boyfriend is ashamed of me so hilarious? Is that what all of this is to you? A joke?”

Aaron knew deep within himself he was making a spectacle of himself, but he did not care. He knew his anger was born from the fact that they had not heard back from anyone in the show, but he did not care either. He knew this was not a healthy way to approach the subject, but he was so completely gone in the whirlwind of his anger that he did not want to backtrack. He only wanted to push further, he wanted to fight. He wanted to have it out with Justin, he wanted to find catharsis in a good old fashioned couple’s quarrel.

“Aaron, I don’t know what you’re talking about. We were just discussing what to have for dinner and now this? What the fuck?”

It was not the first time they fought, but it was the first time Justin had been completely blindsided by it. Before, he had always been there to see the exact moment when Aaron had begun to get worked up over something, and he had even gotten so good at identifying when this was going to happen that he could prevent it and deflect the argument altogether. Right now, he felt as if he did not even know what they were going to be fighting about.

“Stop changing the subject and answer me, Justin.”

“Answer what?”

Aaron pursed his lips and closed his eyes for a few seconds, trying to steady himself. _This was not the best way to bring about this conversation, but so be it. Let’s fucking have it._

“Why don’t you ever want to call your mom from inside the house? Why do you always have to go out to do it? Do you not want her to hear me in the background? Do you want to keep me so far away from that part of your life that you need to get out of the house to call your mom? Why haven’t I met your family? Do you even care about building a long term relationship with me?”

Justin’s mouth hung open in such a way that it would have made Aaron laugh had he not been so mad. He could feel his body trembling, and for a horrible second he did not know if it was out of anger or out of fear. His stomach clenched as he waited for Justin’s reply, a sudden realization washing over him: he might not like what Justin had to say.

After a few seconds, Justin rubbed his face with his hands and stared at him with steel eyes. “I feel as though you just slapped me. I can’t believe you’d think I’m not serious about you, about us. I left my fucking life back in LA to be with you, to come here and live with you. I abandoned everything I had been building for over two years, just because I could not bare to be without you. I never even asked anything from you when I moved here. I didn’t know what was in store for us, but I didn’t care because we would be together. I never even questioned the fact that I had to come here, that it wasn’t you that could move to LA with me. And now, this? Now you’re asking me this bullshit? Why? Because I like to stand on the fucking sidewalk once a week when I call my mom? Are you fucking kidding me with this shit?”

Aaron felt as if a knife went in between his ribs at every one of Justin’s words, but he did not show it. He stared back at Justin, not flinching, not even swallowing, barely even breathing. He licked his lips before replying.

“I didn’t hear a reply to my questions in there. Did I miss something?”

Justin turned away from him, exasperated, and stood on the other end of the living room before turning to him again.

“Do you know what I talk about with my mom every fucking week? Her new boyfriend’s bowel movements. It’s about two minutes of how we’re doing, and then twenty-five minutes of how worried she is that he isn’t pooping regularly. Excuse me for wanting to spare you the thrill of such a conversation, in which I have to ask shit like ‘well, when was the last time he had pooped before that?’ at regular intervals. Whatever little time I have to actually talk about my life and what is going on in it, you know how I spend it? Talking about you. About how happy I am with you, about the shows we’ve been doing. For the past few months, my mom has learned more about how _your_ fucking life is doing than my own. Here, call her, ask her”, Justin reached into his pocket for his cellphone and threw the phone at the floor in front of him so forcefully that Aaron heard it shattering. “Pick up that fucking phone and call her, ask her right now! Ask her how _I’m_ doing! And you know what? She won’t be able to tell you, but she will fucking give you an accurate description of the last wig _you_ fucking bought!”

Justin was crying angry tears now, standing rooted on the spot, his fists shaking. Aaron looked down at the cellphone and saw it cracked beyond repair. A pang of guilt hit him hard in the chest. He cleared his throat.

“Why haven’t I met your mom yet?”, he asked softly.

“Why haven’t I met _your_ mom?”, Justin shot back at him, his voice raising in volume.

“My mom doesn’t live two fucking hours away!”

“Okay, well why don’t you ever let me talk to her on the phone either?”, Justin replied.

“At least I don’t step out of the house every time she calls!”

“For fuck’s sake, stop reading so much into that! I already told you why I do that!”, Justin’s voice had changed from angry to sorrowful in one second, and it shot Aaron straight in the heart. He could deal with an angry Justin, but he could never ever cope with a sad Justin.

They stood staring at each other for hours, or at least it felt like that to Aaron. His anger had fizzled unexpectedly quickly, and he now felt stupid, childish, and repentant. He was racking his brain for the right thing to say, when Justin spoke again.

“Do you even know how much I love you? You have no fucking idea. Sometimes I can’t sleep at night because my mind is racing, thinking about all the things we’re gonna do with our lives together. You’re sleeping so soundly next to me, and I just stare at your face, your beautiful fucking face, and it makes me want to cry because it makes me feel shit in places in my heart I didn’t even know I fucking had. I literally stay up all night just thinking about ways to be better for you. Never in all my fucked up life have I ever felt like this inside. These past months with you have been the fucking best ever!”, he kicked his cellphone and it smashed against the wall with another crash. He crumpled to the floor, sobbing, and Aaron ran to him. He knelt in front of Justin and put his arms around him, Justin attempting to wriggle out of his touch half-heartedly. “Don’t touch me, please d-don’t… Don’t touch m-me, Aaron”, he was sobbing so hard he could barely put words together, and Aaron realized he was sobbing too. Justin molded onto him, crying, sniffling, trying to speak, and Aaron stroke his back feeling like an idiot.

“I’m a fucking dick. I’m sorry, baby. I’m an asshole”, Aaron grabbed Justin’s face with both his hands and kissed him, his lips salty with tears and snot, but he did not care. Guilt like he had never felt before engulfed him entirely. _How dare you make him cry? Who the fuck do you think you are, Aaron?_

Justin broke the kiss and looked up at him, his eyes filled with sorrow. “Why is this, Aaron? Why? What did I d-do, p-please… tell me… why?”

“Nothing, nothing, you didn’t do anything, I…”, his voice broke and he panicked. Justin had seen him cry before, but it had been years, at least fifteen years, since the last time he had cried so hard that he had been unable to speak. Justin wailed again, clenching Aaron’s shirt in both his fists, lowering his head so that his chin almost touched his chest, and Aaron closed his eyes, feeling ready to die.

“I lo-love you, I love you so mu-much, why don’t you see that? What did I do wrong, why ca-can’t you see that?”. Every single sob and every single tear was a bullet in Aaron’s soul and he felt rage flare inside him again, not at Justin, not even at the idiot producers of the stupid show, but at himself.

 

They stayed hugging on the floor until both their sobs quieted down, and slowly they shifted positions until Aaron was on his back and Justin was cuddled up to his chest. Aaron came clean about it all, about the stress the audition was putting on him, about how he had never asked for anyone’s approval and how it was driving him crazy to now be expecting some strangers to decide if he was good enough. He admitted to having been thinking about how they had never met each other’s families, and how it scared him to think it meant something awful. Justin listened to him, not saying a word, until Aaron felt he had no more words left inside him. This had been one of the worst fights they had ever had, and they had made it through the other side. They always did. At some point, Aaron looked to his right and saw Justin’s smashed up cellphone laying against the wall, and he laughed in spite of himself.

“What?”, Justin asked, looking up to him.

“Your… your phone. It’s wrecked.”

Justin chuckled and gripped his waist tightly. “I don’t fucking care. It’s just a phone.”

They sat up and rubbed their eyes, feeling foolish. Justin lunged at Aaron fiercely, hugging him again, before chuckling. “I’m hungry. I want pizza.”

 

They walked all the way to the pizza place, holding hands, knowing they both carried the evidence of their tears on their faces, and not caring. They sat eating in silence, looking at each other over their slices, smiling. They stayed there for a long time, clutching each other’s hands over the table, not saying anything, letting their eyes speak for themselves. A thousands words were said that way, and by the time they made it back to the house it was already dark.

Silently, they made their way over the bedroom, and started undressing each other. Aaron kissed every bit of exposed skin on Justin’s body, enjoying the way their bodies communicated through their touch. They made love slowly, sensually, only breaking the silence with their moans and their pledges of love. Aaron let Justin spoon him and quickly fell asleep, his body and his mind exhausted beyond measure.

 

He was woken up by Justin’s screams and he flew out of the bed, his heart beating inside his mouth, following his shrieks all the way to the living room, where he sat in front of the computer.

“What is it? What’s happening?” Justin was still screaming, pointing at the screen, not reacting to Aaron’s pleas. He put his hands on Justin’s shoulders and shook him softly. “Baby, talk to me! What happened?”

“You, you… I… They…”, he could hardly speak, and laughter bubbled out of him, almost maniacally, while still pointing at the screen, like a toddler who can not yet speak properly and communicates only through gestures. Aaron looked at the screen but had trouble focusing on anything, adrenaline still pumping furiously through his veins.

“Justin, tell me! What is it?”

“You got the e-mail. I… I didn’t mean to open up your account, you just left it open, and… And… And I went to check my e-mail, and… You got the e-mail! Look at it, you idiot, you got the e-mail!”

Aaron scanned the screen again, feeling his blood pooling at the soles of his feet.

_Hey, kitty girl!_

_We are THRILLED to inform you that the dice have been cast and YOU have been selected to move on to the next phase on your way to become America’s Next Drag Superstar! We are thoroughly impressed by your audition and would love to schedule a video call to meet you and let you tell us why YOU deserve to be one of the 13 fierce queens to be selected for Season 4 of RuPaul’s Drag Race! Kindly reply to this e-mail with your next availability…_

 

Aaron could not continue reading. He felt the living room spinning around him, and he was sure he was going to faint. Dark spots danced in front of his eyes, and he could numbly feel Justin’s hands clutching him, shaking him, squeezing his hands tightly.

“Oh my god, oh my god, it’s happening. It’s all happening…”, Justin closed Aaron’s e-mail account before he could regain enough composure to finish reading the e-mail, and quickly typed his own password before hitting ENTER and waiting for the page to load. Aaron fell sitting on the floor, his eyes unable to focus on anything, his head too numb to wrap around the gravity of the situation. In panic, he looked up at Justin scanning his own inbox, and saw his mouth drop open before clicking on an item. A mere two seconds passed before he leapt out of the chair and started doing jumping jacks on the spot.

“AARON, I GOT IT! WE DID IT! I TOLD YOU! WE DID IT!”

Justin tackled Aaron and they were rolling around on the floor, kissing, screaming, laughing, Justin’s face buried deeply into Aaron’s shoulder, deeply reminiscent of the night before, but these tears were from sheer happiness, and they were one, they were on their way, and they were together, and they were in love.

 

* * *

 

 

Aaron smiled to himself, looking down at his journal, and gripped the pen again.

**Lasky, I gotta admit, I did something bad last night. One of the girls, Willam, it seems she’s a real pothead, and she offered to share a blunt, and I did. I know it’s against the rules, but I was so on edge and it seemed like a great idea at the time. Not gonna lie, I liked it because it relieved my homesickness for a while. Now I’m sorta scared it might get me in trouble. I definitely need you by my side to stop me from doing stupid shit like that.**

Producers be damned, if they were going to go through his stuff and read this and send him home, so fucking be it. He was never going to keep anything from Justin ever again. He would rather risk his place in the competition than start hiding things from him. He had promised to Justin and to himself, he would never not share everything with him. And he was not going to start now because of a tiny little harmless blunt.

 

**Tomorrow’s gonna be a good day, Lasky. I can feel it. I can’t wait.**

 

 


	4. Episode 1 (III)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sharon finally walks the runway for the first time and gets her just deserts.

_Holy shit, holy fuck… I did it._

 

Sharon’s knees were still slightly wobbly as they broke for lunch and they made their slow way to the catering area inside the studio. The producers were trying to enforce a strict “queens walking not talking” rule while the cameras were not filming, but it was near impossible to restrict thirteen girls from speaking to each other after they had just completed their first runway. Even after filming Untucked, it seemed they still had a lot to say to each other, although some of the queens seemed bent on pretending the others did not exist. The air was particularly tense between Jiggly and Lashauwn.

Sharon had gotten the summary of the backstage fight from Chad, but she had only half-listened to it over the intense buzzing in her head after having had a completely positive review from the judges. _Elvira loved me… I want to cry._ She had been so immensely beautiful, and to Sharon it had felt like meeting a long lost relative. She had honestly thought they would have to physically restrain her from jumping from the stage and running over to her to hug her. In all honesty, the only thing that had stopped her had been the fear of getting fake blood all over her incredible breasts.

Chad followed Sharon to a table with their trays and were soon joined by Milan and Latrice. Sharon felt a special connection to them now; even Milan, who had helped along with Chad in getting her bald cap on. She tried to remember Alaska’s words about not letting the relationships distract her from the competition, but she was so thankful at anyone and anything that had aided her in what she felt had been a completely stellar presentation. She looked down at her meager plate of lettuce and cheese and did not even feel irked at the fact that suitable vegetarian options were still nowhere to be seen. She would have been happy to eat the cardboard plates to be able to return to the stage to find out who was the winner.

_Don’t dare to hope. You did well, but so did Princess. It could go either way._

She did not really believe that, but decisively decided to keep both her feet steadily on the ground before she had good reason to sprout wings and fly off into the sky.

Unexpectedly, Phi Phi sat down across from her and fixed her eyes on Sharon for a full 30 seconds before speaking up.

“I gotta say, Needles…” she started, moving around the pasta in her plate with her fork, “I actually really like your look today.”

Sharon turned to give Chad a little incredulous smile.

“I do! I think the blood was a nice party trick.”

“Thank you sweetie. I like how you look like the ringmaster at a Predator-themed circus.”

She could see her words had stung Phi Phi a little, her eyes narrowing slightly as if trying to decipher if it had been a read. Sharon did not care. She had her overheard Phi Phi going around the workroom telling everybody her outfit looked like a dirty tube sock, and she had openly made fun of her bald cap when she fished it out of her suitcase.

Chad quickly broke the silence after swallowing a large chunk of chicken parmigiana. “You really turned it, Needles. Your silhouette was on point and I love these little sores”, she said, pointing at the bleeding holes on Sharon’s face.

“Oh you know, I was just trying to mimic the herpes sores around my dick.” They all chuckled at that, Latrice’s laughter booming over every conversation in the diner area and following up with a loud ‘ _Preach!’_ “I don’t wanna get any ideas, though. I’ve seen some contestants get a bit of praise before and not win the challenge.”

“It’s gonna be you, sweetie”, Chad gave her a motherly squeeze on the arm. “It’s gonna be you.”

Sharon guzzled up half her lemonade cup in order to get rid of the growing pressure in her throat, and she was surprised at how quickly she was getting emotional. Chad’s aura irradiated pure soothing balm over her bones, and she wanted to bury her head on her chest and inhale deeply. She was making her feel at home, and she loved it. It did not help that Latrice was smiling at her, in a slightly “I told you so” way that was full of affection. It stunned her. _Why are these girls being so nice to me?_

It was hard to believe she could evoke positive feelings from anyone, specially other queens. Specially such polished, elegant, classy queens. Almost every single one of these queens would put even the most painted, most elegant Pittsburgh queen to shame. All those queens that had sneered at her when she had decided to run for a pageant would immediately fall to the ground and kiss Chad’s shoes, yet here she was, egging her on and praising the Halloween-costume-quality sores she had applied to her face to look like a zombie that had succumbed to shingles. She looked around and saw all the other girls looking at her, some of them admiringly. _Is this what being popular in high school must have felt like?_

“I’m excited to see you out of spooky drag, though. I think that would be interesting”, Phi Phi piped up, twisting pasta on her fork and smiling at her. Her eyes were shooting daggers, and Sharon knew the read had been returned. Her mouth went instantly dry and a cold shiver went up her spine. _Oh, I was only good today because of the theme? Fuck you._ Her inner voice resounded deeply in her head, but words still stung. Even after fifteen years of being out of high school, she could still remember every single insult that had been hurled at her. She had gotten extremely good at not letting other people’s opinions define her own idea of herself, but she carried the words inside, like a little coffer full of hate.

She quickly shoved the rest of her sad salad inside her mouth and left the table under the excuse of taking a cigarette break. She tottered over to the exit doors on her heels, feeling Chad following her, but not daring to look back. As she pushed the security door and the sun hit her full on the face, the shivers finally took hold of her and she had to grip the staircase railing outside in order to not collapse. A pressure was mounting on her chest and she desperately wanted to gulp air inside her lungs, but it was as if she had forgotten how to breathe. In a haze, she felt Chad’s hands stroking her back softly, and turned to look at her with glassy eyes.

“I’m not a one-trick pony, Chad. I-I’m not…”, she gasped for air and denied herself the relief of crying. _Not today, bullies. Fuck you, not today._

“I know, sweetie. I know”, Chad held her in her arms and softly encouraged her to breathe, whispering soothing words. It was like a hug from mother, and Sharon’s heart did another leap as she thought back at how long it had been since she had seen her own mother.

“None of that today, honey. You killed that runway, and they know it, and they hate you for it. Own what you did. You were splendid”, Chad stepped back from the hug and held her gently by the shoulders. “Do you feel that pressure inside your chest? Do you know what it is? It is the weight of their negativity trying to chip away at your fierceness. Fuck that.”

“I’m proud of what I did today”, Sharon said, sulkily, as a child would when defending a badly colored picture to a classmate.

“You should be. I was not there to see it, but Princess told me. They loved it.”

“Back home, I don’t give a fuck about their hate. I’m an artist, I don’t need any fucking validation from messy queens”, she inhaled deeply, steadying herself. “I don’t understand it. Why am I so sensitive around here? I couldn’t care less about…”, she sighed, defeated. “I don’t know what’s going on with me”, she chuckled mirthlessly.

“Oh girl, look around you. You’re far away from home, none of us know what this competition is gonna be like. It’s like your first drag show all over again. Weren’t you nervous back then?”

Sharon smiled fondly at the memory of it. “I was shitting bricks. I was so nervous I didn’t even realize I hung my cheap feather boa on the boiler, and by the time I went back to get it and put it on, it had completely melted. It threw me off and I totally forgot all the words to my lip-synch. All I did was mouth ‘ _watermelon cantaloupe’_ for the entire song.”

Chad chuckled and Sharon noticed the lovely wrinkles she got around her eyes when she did that. It was extremely endearing, and she felt herself bonding with the older queen. “And what happened after that? What was the audience’s response?”

Sharon thought back to that day over fourteen years ago and saw herself in that silly little black dress and hot pink vinyl boots that were two sizes too big. After staring at her melted feather boa in horror for a solid minute, she had stepped out to vomit her entire lunch on the street, and had only just finished hurling when she saw her crush at the time walking towards her. Sharon remembered him all too clearly, it had been the first time in her life she had felt so deeply infatuated with someone, and the fact that he had almost seen her throwing up nearly sent her into a panic attack. He had mentioned he was excited about seeing her perform, and she had almost decided to cancel her act. She had fully expected to get booed off the stage for showing up in a thirsty wig and not knowing the words to her song. She had bled that stage dry to compensate, crawling on all fours and aggressively head banging to cover up the fact that she was shivering from head to toe. When she had stood up to bow out, she was ready to get pelted with empty cups, but the audience cheered for what had felt like hours. It had been a young audience, all around her own age, and they had loved it. She remembered walking off the stage to hug her crush so hard she had noticed his erection pressing on her hip. It had made her feel like a star, and later that night they had gotten drunk together for the first time and got each other off in the alley behind the bar. It had been an amazing night.

“Yeah, they loved it. They loved me”, Sharon smiled.

“Of course they did. And that’s why you’re here. Own that shit, Needles.”

 

***

 

Night had completely fallen over the Los Angeles sky when they made their way out of the studio and into their trusty van, almost all of them still in half-drag. Aaron had completely changed into his boy clothes, taken out his lenses and teared the bald cap off his head, but he still had a full face of makeup on, sores and all. He had placed himself first on the line to get into the van, his intention to grab a window seat being the only other thing on his mind, besides the fact that he had just won the first challenge. He wanted to hang his head out the window like a dog the entire drive to the hotel, so completely elated by his recent victory that he could not pick out even a trace of smog in the LA air. It all smelled like honey and flowers and he let the fragrance fill his entire body as he grinned to himself, not even paying attention to the conversation going on around him. He thought back to Justin and what they had together in Pittsburgh. He knew Justin could work out that today had been the first elimination, and he wanted nothing more than to let him know he had won. A blanket of security was fastened around his shoulders and he felt invincible. He knew he was not going to go home for a while. He had proven he was not a filler queen, and there was no way they were not going to keep him now for at least half the season. This realization elated him. Stunned, he acknowledged that the entire country was going to see him winning the first challenge, and imagined what that would mean for his career. _For both of our careers…_

After a quick dinner of bread and ketchup (he could see the non-vegetarian options were going to be a staple with the catering service) he almost waltzed all the way down to the elevators before any of the others had finished their dinners. He kept replaying every part of the day inside his head, like a reel of an old movie that he had memorized for life. Even his slight meltdown was now a treasured moment. He had faced all of it, and he had conquered. He could not imagine that even winning the entire competition would ever feel as good as this.

He was so distracted with the ideas rushing inside his head, that he did not notice the person waiting for the elevator next to him. Only after he heard the ‘ _ding_ ’ announcing its arrival and he focused his eyes in front of him, he saw the same tall purple-haired guy from two nights before walking in ahead of him. Hesitantly, he stepped inside and stayed close to the front as the elevator doors closed. Even though Willam had asserted his ideas on the matter, he was not entirely sure that he could be safe from the homophobic rant of a potentially straight guy that had been harassed by someone he had been accompanying. In a flash, he regretted not having taken off his entire makeup before leaving the workroom. He felt himself tensing up, preparing for an imminent confrontation.

“Hi.”

Aaron had expected any interaction to be on the angry side of the emotional spectrum, so the friendly tone in the stranger’s voice threw him off. He looked over his shoulder, still half-expecting to receive a punch to his cheekbone, but saw the stranger smiling at him. _Fuck, that is a good looking face._

“Hi”, he replied, feeling particularly stupid when comparing the stranger’s perfectly proportioned face to his own, still covered in clown white.

“What’s all this about?”, he gestured at Aaron’s face, and he was instantly grateful he had left it all on after all, as it covered the blush he could feel growing hot over his cheeks.

“Oh…”, he chuckled nervously, “It’s just… you know.” _When did you become so good with words, I wonder?_ “Just my business-casual look.”

“Very tasteful”, the stranger smiled at him, and Aaron had to pry his eyes away from his face before he would giggle like a school girl. He hated that his room was on such a high floor, as this elevator ride was taking a lifetime. “I’m Conor.”

“Aaron.”

Silence lulled thickly over the two of them, and Aaron’s eyes flickered over to the small screen indicating what floor they were in. _Hurry the fuck up, for fuck’s sake!_

“I actually wanted to ask your name two nights ago, but your friend was very… off-putting.” Aaron stared at him, for a second forgetting how to comprehend or articulate English words. Conor raised up an eyebrow at him. “I’m sorry, boyfriend?”

“No, no, no no no… No. Neither actually. Neither friend nor boyfriend.” This elicited a grin from Conor, and Aaron felt sure he had stepped into the twilight zone, which was only reaffirmed when he glanced briefly at his reflection on the mirror behind them. “How did you even recognize me with all this shit on my face?”

“I didn’t, really…”, Conor laughed, and turned dead-on flirtatious eyes up to him. “Just your eyes. I instantly recognized your eyes.”

 _Oh, this is some fucking delirium I’m having. I must’ve definitely gotten high off all that wig glue from sticking the bald cap on my head. This is NOT happening. Why haven’t we arrived at my floor yet?_ With a jolt, Aaron suddenly recalled Conor was staying on the same floor as him, and he felt trapped. _Get away from me, right now, get away._

“So, this might be a stupid question, considering you’re looking like that”, Conor gestured at Aaron’s face again, “but, have any plans tonight?”

Aaron stared into his face in utter shock. This guy was a 10 by Pittsburgh standards. In Los Angeles, he was definitely a 9. Judging from what very little they had seen of the city, Aaron firmly considered himself an LA 2. The heavenly ‘ _ding_ ’ arrived not a moment too soon, and Aaron quickly turned towards the doors again, actively running out of the elevator as soon as the doors opened. Conor followed suit quickly.

“Well, it was nice catching up, have a good night, now!” Aaron said loudly, fidgeting with his card key and closing the door behind him before Conor had a chance to reach him. He stayed behind the door, looking out from the peephole, and saw Conor standing briefly in front of his room, a puzzled look on his face, before he turned left and continued walking down the aisle.

Inexplicably, Aaron dissolved into a fit of hysterical laughter inside his room, slowly sliding down the door until he was resting his head on his bended knees and tears were coming down his face. He was laughing at the indescribably surreal scene that had just taken place, he was laughing at having had won the first challenge, he was laughing away all the nerves and fears and doubts that he had packed inside his suitcase and had brought all the way from Pittsburgh, he was laughing at his Freddy Krueger makeup that had snatched him that glorious victory, he was laughing at how RuPaul’s jaw had dropped as he had bitten into the capsule filled with blood inside his mouth, he was laughing so hard that his ribs ached, his eyes felt as if they were being pressed inside his skull, he was laughing so freely and so joyously that he expected he was actually going to lose his mind. He laughed until the tears washed away perfect cascades of makeup off his face, brushing his eyes with the heels of both hands with such force that they came away painted completely white, and he laughed again. He wanted to bottle up these tears, all salty and chalky and with tinges of red from the fake blood still on his face, and bring them back to Justin as the perfect trophy of all they had accomplished together. This win was as much Justin’s as it was his. He never would have auditioned if it were not for him, and he surrendered himself to the velvety feeling of love that engulfed him. He had never been more in love with Justin than in this moment. He had never believed in predestination and fate so much as in this moment. _I was predestined to be with him, and he was predestined to be with me. We’re written in stone somewhere in the fabric of this crazy universe. This was all meant to happen all along._

Slowly, he made his way into the bathroom and stripped of all his clothes, stepping under the shower and turning the knob that activated the spray of cold water that hit his entire body at once. The water felt blindingly cold specially on his face, hot from the tears it was washing away, but he relished the feeling. He had never felt more alive.

He finished scrubbing the remainders of his makeup under the shower, and gently shampooed all the glue residue from his hair before turning the shower off and wrapping himself in a towel bathrobe. He was just getting ready to sit at his desk and write what he expected to be a dismally long journal entry, when there was a knock on his door. He turned to look at the door with fearful eyes, sure that it would be Conor, intruding on his peace. Soundlessly, he padded barefoot over the carpet to look out the peephole, and was instead greeted by a fish-eye view of Chad’s face. With a smile, he opened the door without even registering he was completely naked under the bathrobe.

“Sorry to interrupt, your highness…”, Chad gave him a knowing smile and did a little fake bow that made Aaron smile and swat his arm playfully, “but look what I managed to sneak from an unattended food trolley.” He raised up his hand to reveal a small bottle of red wine, and Aaron grinned at him. “Thought we could have ourselves a little celebratory toast in your honor.”

“Oooh, stolen booze, my favorite! How’d you know?”, Aaron stepped aside to let Chad in, and they both sat comfily on his bed after Aaron retrieved a couple of plastic cups from the bathroom sink.

Chad twisted open the cap on the bottle and poured the entire contents of it unto both their cups, holding his up to toast. “To Miss Sharon Needles, worthy winner of the first challenge of Season 4 of RuPaul’s Drag Race”, they pressed their cups together and Aaron put the cup to his lips, his entire tongue relishing at the flavor of the wine.

“A bit too soon to be celebrating anything, don’t you think? Kinda feels like bad luck.”

“Never”, Chad sipped at his wine delicately, “There’s no other queen in the world that can say they won this challenge, and I think that’s reason enough to celebrate.”

 

As they drained their cups, they got more and more comfortable on the bed until they were both sitting with their backs resting on the headboard, Chad’s head on one of Aaron’s pillows, his cup long since drained of its contents. They discussed their drag origins, Aaron telling him the full story of his first drag performance, and Chad feigning indignation at the underage drinking and sex involved in the tale. Chad talked about his drag family and his partner back home, and Aaron recounted the tale of how he had dropped out of high school and moved away from home at 15.

“Who’s rooting for you back home?”, Chad asked, looking up at Aaron with heavily lidded eyes. _Cheap wine is the strongest wine around._

“My boyfriend, Justin.” Aaron reached for his wallet resting on the side table and flipped it open to show Chad a picture of both of them in drag.

“Cute”, Chad declared with a smile. “So he’s a performer, too?”

“Yep. He’s the second fiercest queen in all of Pittsburgh”, Aaron laughed.

“And how did you two meet?”

Aaron sighed and drained his cup of the last few drops of wine. “Well, actually the first time I saw him, I was here in LA visiting a friend and she took me to a local drag show. It was all feathers and rhinestones and I was getting bored out of my mind, this close to suggesting we bailed, when the messiest, skinniest, prettiest drag queen I had ever seen clambered on stage in ten-inch heels, walking around like Bambi and sipping a tall glass of what I thought was water, but later found out was vodka. She was wearing a ridiculously huge wig, teased up so fucking high I swear it could reach the ceiling, and the tiniest dress ever, it barely covered her ass. She lip-synched to a Spice Girls song, barely able to walk in those stupid shoes. I remember being so captivated by her performance, she was just so… energetic! I was so enthralled looking at her that I didn’t even hear what her name was, and after her act I went around asking every waiter who that was. Alaska Thunderfuck.” Aaron smiled, perfectly recalling Alaska’s bold black eyebrows and old-Hollywood red lipstick. “I actually wanted to hang out long enough to catch her after the show, but my friend got messy drunk and I had to get us back home before I could meet her. When I got back to Pittsburgh, I looked him up on MySpace and friended him. From his page I found out he was actually from Pennsylvania and had gone to college in Pittsburgh. For a while we only interacted through MySpace comments and such. He would constantly comment flirty things on my drag pictures, and it eventually progressed to private messaging. One day he told me he was coming back to Pennsylvania for the holidays to visit his family and was going to stop by Pittsburgh to meet some old friends. We found out we had a few friends in common and we were both invited to the same party, although I had had no intention to go. When I found out he was going to, I changed my mind”.

Chad chuckled and sighed happily. “And was it love at first sight?”

Aaron laughed. “Well, we ended up fucking that very same night and a couple of months later he packed up all his shit and moved back to Pittsburgh to be with me.”

“That is so romantic, Needles”, Chad sighed again and closed his eyes briefly. “You’re lucky. It sounds like you two have a really good thing going on.”

“I love him. And I really do believe we’re meant to be together. We’ve been through some shit… Let me tell you, nothing tests your relationship more than living off two part-time jobs and drag tips and not knowing if you’re gonna be able to pay the bills on time.”

With a pang, Aaron realized that was a lie. Sure, there had been some hungry days when they had chosen to buy beer and drugs instead of buying groceries, and he specially recalled some tough couple of days when they had not been able to pay the electric bill and they had been stuck with no heating in the Pittsburgh winter; but in the end, he knew that their worst fights had never been money related. Justin came from a more affluent household than his, and he was used to better things and better living conditions, but he never complained about their narrow circumstances and he was always the one to put a funny spin on whatever they happened to be going through in that regard. No, their worst fights had always been about other things. For a second, Aaron flashed back to their Pittsburgh living room, where he was standing over the glittering remains of the thrift-store mirror they had hung beside their front window, his hands running with blood, Justin’s sobbing body at his feet. _“Fuck this shit, Justin! Who the fuck do you think you are? What the fuck do you think you’re playing at?”_

 

Chad’s voice pulled him out of his nightmarish reverie, and he briefly shook his head to rid himself of those memories.

“I don’t think you’re gonna have to be dealing with any unpaid bills anymore, darling!”, he chuckled, and Aaron joined him. “Nope, it’s all uphill from here on out in the Needles household, for sure.”

Aaron was about to reply, when they started hearing muffled voices coming from the room next to his. It sounded like two people in a heated discussion, and Aaron recalled what Jiggly and Dida had mentioned the day before. He turned to look at Chad and saw him narrowing his eyes in concern.

“Okay, so what’s that all about? I know you know something. Who’s in there with Willam?”

Chad rolled his eyes and sighed before replying. “I don’t feel comfortable talking about…”

“Oh, cut the crap”, Aaron interrupted. “Who am I gonna tell? If she’s getting in some fucking trouble in the room next to mine, I need to know.”

“Look, I don’t know anything for sure. All I know is that the first night we got here, I was just arriving from the airport and I saw a tall man knocking on a random door. I didn’t know at the time that it was Willam’s room. Someone opened and sorta screamed. By the time I walked past the room they were closing the door but I peeped inside and saw the man in there with a blonde guy, and they both looked pissed. The next day, I was leaving for the lobby and I saw the same tall man leaving the room. He had the same clothes on as the night before. In the workroom, I recognized Willam as that blonde guy. I actually thought that maybe it was a, you know…” Chad made a gesture with his hand, “a business transaction. But now I’m not sure. Dida said they had been arguing, and now they sound like they’re arguing again. If I had to guess…”, Chad trailed off, shrugging.

“If you had to guess, what?”

“If I had to guess, I’d say that’s Willam’s boyfriend or something.”

The news stunned Aaron. The fact that Willam was getting a visitor was a serious breach of the filming rules, and he felt slightly bitter at the fact that he had been asked to relinquish his phone, but somehow everyone had missed the fact that Willam was being visited by his partner.

“Look, I don’t wanna get involved. I prefer to be able to say I honestly didn’t know what was happening if he’s ever found out and they go around asking us who knew”, Chad explained.

Chad left shortly after, giving him a quick hug at the door, and Aaron sat at the desk to finally put pen to paper. He stared at the picture of Justin and him together, and he felt intensely jealous that Willam was able to keep his partner at his side while he had been cut cold-turkey from Justin. The ugly monster of his memories gave a low warning growl and he shut the door on it. He did not want to be thinking back at the bad times, he did not want to be thinking back at the worst of it, he wanted to fill up the page with all the positivity from that day. _That shit is all in the past, anyway. We moved on. We made it through and we put that behind us. Ancient history. I forgave him. We forgave each other._

 

**Lasky,**

**I still feel like I’m dreaming as I write this down. I’m actually so exhausted and it’s terribly late here, but I need to feel close to you right now, and I feel the closest to you when I write in this journal. So much has changed since I got off the plane at the airport. I was so fucking scared, and nervous, and sure that I was going right back before the end of the week. I don’t feel that way anymore. Baby, I think I actually have a shot at this. It’s much too early to call, but I have a chance now, a REAL chance. Lasky, I WON!!!!!!**

**My runway look was a hit. I constructed a very tight-fitting straight dress with some cloth that looked really dirty and I cut holes all over it to make it look a bit more punk. I was scared because some of the other girls have mad sewing skills, but I worked with the sewing machine where I could and the rest I hot-glued together. I put on my bald cap (some of the girls had to help me, that shit was hard to stretch over my entire head!) and I did end up finishing the look with the sores you told me about. Of course, I polished off the whole thing up with my white lenses and the little blood balloon in my mouth. Every other girl looked like an apocalypse survivor, I was the only zombie down the runway, and I felt so fucking excited about that! The photographer, Mike, got the whole idea right off the bat, he totally understood I was the queen that didn’t survive the end of the world. You shoulda seen Ru’s face when I let the blood fall out of my mouth. I thought he might be put off by it, but they ALL loved it.**  
****

**Let me talk about my mommy Elvira for a minute. When I walked out to the runway and saw her sitting there, I almost screamed. She’s PERFECT, everything about her is exactly as I pictured, she’s everything I ever want to be. I just kept remembering all those long Sunday afternoons I spent as a child, idolizing her through my TV set, and she was right there in front of me. I can seriously die now, and it wouldn’t be a bad thing. She fucking LOVED me. She said I was “her kind of ghoul”, can you believe that? Never in all my life would I have expected to hear those words from her. It’s still all so fresh in my mind, I feel like I’m standing there still, and I felt amazing. Literally no negative critiques at all, I couldn’t believe it. Still, I was really nervous all through out the lunch break, and I had a bit of a meltdown. You know how we always laughed about all the comments from past queens saying ‘Oh the pressure got to me’? THAT IS ALL TRUE. It’s insane how much the pressure and all the expectations can get at you. Miss Chad Michaels has been entirely lovely to me, and she lifted my spirits during my crisis. When I got back on the runway, I had my mind set that I was going to win. I just needed to win, right there in front of The Mistress of the Dark.**  
****

**When Ru said I was the winner, I thought I was going to faint. Do you remember that pageant I signed up for, where everyone booed me off the stage and after they counted the ballots I had only received two votes? Not even in that moment I felt so lightheaded as I did today when RuPaul said I was the winner. Elvira was SO HAPPY too! I do believe she was actually rooting for me! I swear, it makes me want to cry. Everything we’ve ever done is making so much sense now. The people out there in the world, they get it. Who the fuck cares about those ugly ass pageant queens back home?**  
****

**Baby, I know I’m not going home any time soon. I know that now, and even though it means I will not see you for a while, I’m over the fucking moon. I feel as if I already won the entire competition. You’d be so proud of me, sweetheart. I’m gonna go to bed now, and I will be dreaming about you and Cerrone. I can’t wait to see you again, and we will have a long celebration when I come home. I miss you like hell. I love you. I love you. I LOVE YOU.**  
****


	5. Episode 2 (I)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After facing the training for the Luscious Ladies of the WTF Challenge, Aaron has a flashback to his last fight, and how it laid the foundations of the man he wanted to be for Justin.

“Oh my god, I feel as if my ass took a pounding today, and not in a good way.”

Dida was mock-limping out of the studio towards the parked van in the parking lot, and all of them could relate to the pain. They were all very much worse for the wear after their intense wrestling boot camp, and Aaron hoped he would not have to spend half a bar of concealer covering up bruises for the next day’s filming. Madame LaQueer’s grip on his thin arms had definitely been more forceful than had been necessary.

He purposely hung back from the line quickly forming beside the van and stood next to Milan. He was hoping they could get in a quick chat regarding their acting for the actual wrestling performance. Milan looked up at him and gave him an easy smile. Word had traveled quickly among them, and they knew The Princess had struggled with the challenge so far. Aaron felt strangely relaxed, even considering Madame’s ankle injury. He was still riding high from his victory the previous day, and he did not want to entertain the thought of possibly facing a bottom placement.

“How are you feeling about tomorrow, Needles?”, Milan asked as they settled into their seats and the van door slammed shut.

“I feel alright. I think we have a good storyline planned out, but I think we need to bring something extra, specially during our entrance.”

“What do you mean?”

Aaron looked around and he could see a couple of the others listening intently on their conversation. He preferred to play his cards close to the chest and not get into details of the few ideas he had, so he just shrugged and murmured, “Drop by my room after dinner, and we can chat.”

 

Back at the hotel, Aaron settled for a self-made cold sandwich of cheese and Thousand Island dressing, washed down with copious amounts of grape juice, as everyone else dug into chicken casserole and hearty BBQ brisket. After the day’s physical exertions he would have murdered for a soy burger, but he had long relented on even complaining about the menus. A few of them were starting to make their way out of the dining area, and a sudden panic rose up in Aaron’s chest. He frantically looked around and seized Chad by the arms, squeezing.

“Ow, easy there, Needles. I’m still sore from today”, he protested.

“I need you to do me a favor”, Aaron replied, ignoring Chad’s protest. “Before you came into my room last night, I had a bit of a weird episode with a guy, another hotel guest.”

Chad raised an eyebrow at him, slightly disapproving but with a sly smile on his lips. “Tut, tut. So soon into the shooting? What would Justin say?”

“Yeah, very funny. Look, it wasn’t cool. On our second night here, Willam sort of heckled this guy we ran into outside my room, and last night I had to share the elevator ride with him. It got weird. In the end, I had to literally run to my room and he was actually chasing me.”

Chad was suddenly worried. “Violent? If he was harassing you, we could report it.”

“No, no… More like…”, Aaron sighed and shrugged. “He was talking about my fucking eyes and I got the distinct feeling he was going to ask me out.”

“Oh, you poor thing. Must be that adorable chin of yours.”

“I’m telling you, it was fucking bizarre. I just don’t want another episode. Can you go out to the lobby and tell me if the coast is clear?”

“Alright. What does he look like? I’m picturing short, stout, ZZ Top beard, strong body odor.”

“More like tall, tan, purple mohawk and the face of a Greek statue; but that really doesn’t make the situation any better.”

Chad laughed. “Alright. I’ll go scout the surroundings. If it’s clear, I will cluck like a chicken once. If I see him, I will cluck twice.”

Aaron stared at him, deadpan. “Or you could just fucking act like a human being and give me a thumbs up or something.”

Chad rolled his eyes, smiling. “Boring.”

 

Aaron stood half-hiding by the dining room entrance, his head peering out and ignoring the weird looks from Dida and Latrice. His eyes staid fixed on Chad, who put on a show of walking stealthily and looking around like a bad actor in an espionage movie. After doing a few circuits of the lobby, he walked towards the elevator and pushed the UP button, before turning around and signaling Aaron to come out. He quickly made his way towards Chad, fidgeting anxiously until the _ding_ announced the arrival of the elevator. Much to his relief, it was empty as the doors opened, and him and Chad stepped inside.

“Are you normally this scared when dealing with possible trade?”, Chad asked, looking pointedly at the ceiling, a playful smile on his lips.

“Shut up.”

“I’m serious. So a guy wants to bang you. It can’t be the first time you’ve been in that situation.”

“I just don’t want any drama.”

“Spoken like a true drag queen.”

“I don’t trust myself, alright?”, Aaron said exasperatedly, turning around to look at him.

Chad turned to him, a worried furrow in his brow. “You mean…”

“Look…”, Aaron rubbed his eyes, “Justin and I are in a committed relationship. I love him. But I’ve gone from having dick on demand to absolute celibacy and even though it’s been less than a week, it’s getting to me. I know who I am. I was a whore when I was younger, and to be honest I could easily be a whore now. I just don’t want to put myself in that situation where I have to make a choice.” He looked into Chad’s eyes, and for a second he could not understand why he was telling him all of this. He felt so connected to the older man, and he knew anything he told him would be kept in secret forever. “For me, being faithful to Justin is an active choice. I don’t know if that means I’m a horrible person, the fact that I have to actually stop myself from doing something stupid, instead of just not getting the urges at all. I do get them, okay? I just choose not to act on them, and I choose to not put myself in… situations that could potentially become a problem.”

Chad’s face softened, and he put a hand on Aaron’s shoulder. “I’ve been in a committed relationship for eight years now, and I know what you mean. This doesn’t make you a bad person. It actually makes you an excellent partner. A decent partner. A mature human being.”

Aaron gave out a bark of a laugh, shaking his head. “I don’t know about that…”

“I mean it. Most people wouldn’t give a shit.”

 

They stayed in silence, ascending towards Aaron’s floor. When they arrived and the elevators opened, Chad reached out to grab him by the arm before he could step out. “I’m sorry for making fun of you. I didn’t know.”

Aaron looked to him and smiled. “It’s alright. I’m sorry I made you into a cheap Dick Tracy impersonator.”

Chad laughed and shrugged. “Anytime.”

 

Back in his room, Aaron quickly shed his clothes to take a shower, examining some small blue finger imprints on his left forearm. _Fucking Madame. We better win this fucking challenge._

He had just finished putting on some pajama bottoms and a raggedy Elvira shirt, when there was a knock on his door. He looked out the peephole and saw Milan, chugging a Yoo-hoo. He opened the door and invited him in.

“So, what do you have in mind for tomorrow?”, Milan asked as he sat on Aaron’s desk chair and Aaron sat on the bed facing him.

“Well, we’re supposed to be like the GLOW girls, right? They were always more into the whole glamour aspect of it, slutty and sexual. Chad and Madame’s characters are so ridiculous, we’re gonna have to put in the sluttiness, you and I.”

“Not going to have any problems there”, Milan smiled, finishing the rest of his Yoo-hoo and chucking the empty bottle into the garbage bin.

They briefly discussed their entrance walk, and Aaron exposed his ideas of posing and acting like they were more into each other than into the crowd. Milan laughed loudly at the idea of mock-french kissing as they came into the set, and suggested they also do it with the audience.

“Have you ever been in a fight?”, Milan asked eventually.

Aaron smiled without humor. “More times than you can imagine.”

“Really?”, Milan’s eyes widened and he leaned forward in the chair. “Any bad ones?”

“Yeah, sure. Lots of fist fights during my misfit youth. I tried to tone it down as I got older, but some times the violence just seeks you out, you know?”

Milan smiled apologetically. “I don’t know. I’ve never been in a fight.”

“You what?”, Aaron was shocked. “How do you get to be a drag queen, or indeed a gay man, of our age and never be in a fight?”

Milan shrugged. “I didn’t come out until I was in college, so never had any beefs in high school. I was in the drama club back then, so I’m sure everybody thought my effeminate nature was just a result of me being a wannabe actor.”

“But come on! You’ve never gotten into brawls at bars, or going back home after a show?”

“Not really… I mean, I’ve had guys yell things at me walking down the street, and once when I was with a drag friend some guys even chased us down the block, but I just kicked off my heels and ran until we lost them. I used to run track in college”, he smiled.

“A man of many talents.” Aaron stared at him in disbelief. “I just can’t believe you’ve never been in a fight, or taken a punch.”

“Oh, I’ve taken punches.”

“I don’t mean stage fights…”

“I don’t either.” He got very serious and looked down to the hem of his shirt, playing with it. “I was in a bad relationship once. It shames me to admit I stuck around long enough to be on the receiving end of more than one sucker punch. But I never fought back. Whenever it happened, I would just ball up on the floor and he would stop.”

A thick silence hung over them, and Aaron tried to assimilate the situation. He was sitting in a hotel room in LA in his pajamas, listening to a virtual stranger tell him an incredibly intimate story. _This whole experience is straight out of an acid trip._

“I’m sorry”, he said finally, lamely.

“It was a long time ago. The reason I’m telling you this…”, he sighed and looked up at Aaron. “I was actually glad you wanted to chat tonight, because… I got a bit of a Vietnam flashback during rehearsals today. At one point it actually got a bit hard for me. I came here to win and not make an ass of myself, so I powered through. It’s not in my nature to complain. And you seemed so at ease, so in character… and you won the last challenge, so… I just don’t want to embarrass you tomorrow. And I don’t want you to worry. If you see me slightly out of it, I will snap back. I promise.”

A sudden realization came crashing down on Aaron, like a glass ceiling shattering. _I am the frontrunner as of right now. He wants to make an alliance. They all will be wanting to make alliances._

At a loss of something to say, he licked his lips before replying. “It’ll be fine. I honestly couldn’t even tell.” The silence stretched between them. “I guess we all carry some demons that were probably rattled today. My own mind kept darting back to a particularly horrid fight I had, not even that long ago.”

“What happened?”

He shrugged. “You know. I was drunk, I guess I picked a fight. I hadn’t even realized he had a broken bottle in his hand…”

“Oh my god.”

“Yeah. They had to pull him off me, but I was so shit-faced, so completely out of it, that I didn’t notice I was bleeding.”

Milan looked at him in horror. “Were you seriously injured?”

“Well, he came at me with a broken beer bottle, what do you think?”, Aaron asked with a smile.

 

Milan decided not to prod any more at the issue. They shared some last good wishes for the next day and he took his leave. Aaron was left sitting in bed, staring straight ahead. He willed his brain not to relive the episode, but it was suddenly extremely raw on him. He felt embarrassed about that night, even now, because it had happened so soon after Justin had moved in. He had been more scared about Justin’s reaction than his own injuries.

 

* * *

 

Aaron was brimming with pride as he saw Alaska taking a bow on stage, the entire audience in the Blue Moon clapping and cheering. They had spent the first month after moving in together completely absorbed in each other, unpacking Justin’s boxes and methodically dividing the spare room to share it as a drag closet. Aaron had found some extremely decent clothes racks in the Army depot store, and haggled them down to $15 for the entire set. That first weekend, they spent hours in their underwear moving around the closet, hanging up Justin’s dresses, occasionally stopping when he would ask Justin to model a certain one, which would inevitably end up in the floor after Aaron all but ripped it off him before lifting him up to carry him back into their bedroom.

After that, he would only leave the house to begrudgingly go to his part time job, and Justin passed the time looking for possible job opportunities for himself and going grocery shopping. Every day when Aaron returned, Justin would have a pot of soup boiling on the stove and they would spoon feed each other directly out of it before chasing each other down the hall and into the bedroom. He willfully ignored every single one of Veruca’s phone calls and Cherri’s texts, and Justin and he had even pretended not to be home when they had finally made it over to the house to bang on the door and complain loudly about all the shows he was missing.

“You’re gonna make them hate me. I don’t want them to hate me”, Justin complained, still flushed in the face from the shushed giggling attack they had shared during the entire episode. “I told you before coming here that I want to keep doing drag. I was hoping we would do it together.”

“Are you saying you don’t want to be holed up in here and be my sexual plaything all day long anymore?”, Aaron asked, a flirtatious smile on his lips.

“Don’t go twisting my words around”, Justin grinned and leaned into him, kissing him slowly before continuing. “I just think we can do both. And I certainly don’t want Veruca and Cherri to think I’m forcing you to stay here with me.”

“It’s not like that, those guys love you!”

“Then can we do a show this weekend?”, Justin looked up at him with puppy eyes, and Aaron experienced the puzzling sensation of feeling tremendous tenderness and intense lust at the same time. It was a sensation that was by now becoming extremely familiar in him. There was something about Justin’s huge baby eyes that made his heart jump and his cock stir all at once. “Pweeeease?”, he smiled at Aaron and straddled him, placing tiny kisses along his collarbone.

“This emotional blackmail is so fucking unfair”, Aaron protested between giggles.

“Come on! I’ll let you pick my outfit and when we get home after I’ll deep-throat you so hard you’re gonna see stars.”

“Shut the fuck up”, Aaron growled playfully, before grabbing Justin by the elbows and switching positions with him.

 

Some time after, as Justin wiped Aaron’s chest with a damp towel, he pressed his cellphone into his hand and instructed him point blank to call Veruca and set up a show for that weekend. Inside his head, Aaron was anxious. There was nothing that he wanted more than for Veruca and Cherri to embrace Alaska into the Haus of Haunt, and though he knew that they both approved of Justin and their relationship, they were extremely possessive of their collective drag, and he feared it would eventually come down to him making a choice between them and Justin. Because he loved the Haus of Haunt, but he would pick Justin in a heartbeat. Always.

Much to his delight, Veruca had been extremely excited about setting it up, and he had even suggested that they plan it in the fashion of Alaska’s “debut extravaganza", as a solo performance. Aaron quickly relied this idea to Justin, and he had reacted in sheer joy, screaming and running into the closet to start planning the outfits and wigs for the show. He kept true to his word and let Aaron select half the wardrobe for the night, borrowing a long red wig of his to complement what would be the last outfit for the performance.

 

Word had spread around Pittsburgh that the Haus of Haunt was going to debut a new drag queen and that night the Blue Moon had been jam-packed, a much bigger crowd than Aaron had ever seen inside it. He relished every single moment of Alaska’s performance, her witty banter in between songs and the way she downed shots during build-ups to the crowd’s delight. Every once in a while, he stole side glances at Cherri and Veruca, and saw them grinning and clapping in between songs. His heart felt full and heavy inside his chest. _I have everything. I don’t want for a single thing. I have it all._

By the time Alaska was about to start her last song, Aaron was downing his twelfth PBR and had just ordered his fourth shot of whiskey. He knew he was well past the “tipsy” frontier, his eyelids felt heavy and he was starting to have trouble keeping balance on the bar stool he was perched on. He saw the way Alaska squinted at the microphone in her hand and knew she was good and drunk as well. The thought made him grin and he grabbed the shot glass in front of him, downing it in one swift gulp.

“I want to dedicate this song to… my lovely girlfriend with a penis, Sharon Needles, sitting over there”, Alaska pointed directly at him and the crowd erupted in cheers and wolf-whistles. He smiled and raised a finger to point back at her. “Baby, I’m sorry to say this, but the Blue Moon _IS MINE NOW_!”, she raised a fist and the crowd cheered again as Veruca elbowed Aaron in the ribs playfully. He raised both hands in a “ _oh please_ ” gesture, which evoked laughter from the audience. “This next song, is dedicated to the lovely Sharon Needles, because I know with all of my heart that we will never again be able to sing this song from a personal standpoint anymore.”

The sound system flooded the bar with the starting beats of Beyoncé’s _Single Ladies_ as Aaron put his thirteenth bottle of beer to his lips, and he laughed so hard that he spit all the beer in his mouth directly into the face of the man standing in front of him. Veruca and Cherri shrieked with laughter, and Aaron was still gasping for air when he heard the man speak.

“What the fuck? Are you kidding, you fucking cunt?”, he was wiping at his face with the sleeve of his jacket, and Aaron could see through the drunken blur in his eyes that he was rapidly turning red and murderous.

“So-s-sorry!”, he laughed and extended his arm to try to pat him on the arm, but the man shrugged him off forcefully.

“Keep your fucking hands off me, you fucking inbred beast!”

Aaron felt the adrenaline rush out all across the veins in his body, and he knew he was tensing up for a fight. _Cool it, cool it down. Not here, not now. Cool down, now._

“I’m sorry”, he said, more earnestly, “I didn’t mean to…”, he tried to sound serious, but his speech was slurring from the alcohol in his body, and he knew he was still smiling faintly at the entire situation. Stupidly, he reached out to the man in an attempt to make another conciliatory gesture, but it was the wrong move.

“I said don’t touch me, you fucking infected bitch!”

 

That was it. That was all it took. Aaron lost control of his limbs and jumped out of the bar stool, trying to display his height as a way to intimidate his opponent, but he quickly saw he was outmatched. The man towered a solid 10 inches over Aaron, and he was burly enough to snap him in half with one arm, but Aaron had years of street fighting experience that had taught him to hit first, and hit hard. It had happened so quickly that Cherri and Veruca had not had time to intervene, and before he knew it he was swinging his right arm right into the man’s ribs. Caught by surprise, the man doubled over and Aaron took the opportunity to slam his fist down again, this time hitting him square in the back of the neck, bringing him to his knees. He was vaguely aware of the people around them staring, and his eyes darted up to Alaska on the stage. She was standing in shock, microphone forgotten in her limp right hand, her other hand pressed against her mouth. It lasted less than a second. Aaron’s attention had been sufficiently distracted, and the man banked on it. From the floor, he tackled Aaron’s knees and he fell back into the bar, the sharp edge sinking deep in between two vertebrae. The bruise would flourish horribly over the next couple of days, making it impossible for Aaron to bend at the waist without screaming for a good month. In his current state, he barely noticed it. He grappled with the man, their arms around each other, quickly losing balance until they fell sideways into a nearby table, spilling empty beer bottles everywhere. Aaron’s inner ear was spinning from booze and confusion, and it took him more than a couple of seconds to realize he was on the floor, in the middle of a fight, and needed to get up, gain the upper hand again. It was more time than the other man needed; he had quickly regained his footing and Aaron only felt the air being knocked out of him as the man’s army boot-clad foot connected with his ribs. He curled up into a ball, trying to protect his chest and wrapping his arms around his head. The people around them were scuffling now, some trying to get a better look, others trying to step in the middle of the fight to break it up. He could hear Veruca and Cherri pleading the man to stop, Cherri’s sobs resounding loudly over the entire bar. Incredibly, he still had enough sense in him to notice someone had turned the music off, and he had a second to feel guilty about ruining Alaska’s show before hearing the distinct shattering of glass very near his face. 

 

Veruca screamed. He felt the man’s presence looming over him and screwed his eyes shut, preparing for another blow. Instead, he felt a white hot pain, unlike any he had ever experienced, sharp, intrusive, obscene, otherworldly; and warm blood running from his shoulder down to his elbow. _What happened? Did he break my arm? I didn’t hear my bone snap._ The crowd around them groaned in unison and there were many shouts of pleas for someone to end it. He heard a woman screaming “Stop him! Somebody stop him! He’s going to kill him!”, and thought: _I’m okay, I’m not dead. I’m just a little bruised up._ He uncovered his face, vaguely aware he had blood from his arm running down his jaw, and saw the man ready to ram into him again. He tried to get up, to meet him in the air with his fists, to show him and everyone watching that he could take the punches and would not be brought down by some silly slapping around. He noticed he had gone completely deaf. He could hear nothing other than his own breathing and the man’s panting. As he made use of all the strength he had left in him to sit up, the sounds of Justin’s screams and wails made it past the sound barrier inside his head, and he looked up in time to see him push his way into the small circle where the fight was taking place. His makeup was running down his face in streaks of tears and his wig had fallen off his head. It seemed to take full minutes, even hours, as Aaron watched Justin jumping at him, and in a second of panic he thought he was going to attack him too. _I ruined the show. He’s angry._ Justin seemed suspended in air, moving at a speed of a millimeter per minute, his lithe body arching over the debris of splintered chairs and broken glasses that surrounded them, and Aaron felt he could look at him forever. Suddenly he was on top of him, and he realized he had jumped in front of the man to cover Aaron with his body.

“ _No!_ ”

 

Justin’s voice was loud and it rang clear in Aaron’s head, crashing over his head like an entire jar of ice water and snapping him back to reality. He felt the blood gushing out of somewhere in his shoulder, his back was in agony and he was sure he had a couple of broken ribs. The pain was suddenly overbearing and mighty, pain so intense he thought he was going to pass out. Breathing through his mouth, he looked up from behind Justin’s shoulder to see the man being restrained by three men, and a woman wrestling something out of his wrist, crying and screaming. Justin turned to him and pulled his face close to his own. Aaron could have counted every single drop of tear in his eyelashes. 

“Get up, Aaron, come on! Let’s go!”, Cherri was pulling at his bloodied arm, and a new wave of pain hit him like a thousand bricks as he let himself be hoisted up by three pairs of arms. Justin gripped him fiercely around the waist with both arms and the four of them rushed out of the bar, the crowd parting before them, staring in silent shock. Aaron kept his head down and noticed Justin was barefoot, his red pumps forgotten somewhere inside the bar.

They ran all the way down to Cherri’s car parked a block down from the bar, and Justin pushed Aaron into the back seat, quickly sliding in beside him and slamming the door shut.

“Go! Let’s go!”

The car sped down the streets, not breaking at the intersections, and Aaron vomited all over his chest. Justin quickly ripped his shirt over his head and off him, gathering it up to wipe at his mouth before flinging it out the window. He then removed his own top, a sparkly black blouse that Aaron had picked out for him, and quickly wrapped it around the wound in Aaron’s shoulder. Veruca was turned in the co-pilot’s seat, staring at them with a look of horror that Aaron had never seen before.

Justin was pleading. “Cherri, quickly! We need to get him to a hospital!”

“No.” Aaron’s voice crackled and rasped, he suddenly felt as if all the air had left his lungs and he could not articulate a single word. Justin looked at him like he had spoken in an ancient tongue. “No hospitals. Take us home.”

“Are you fucking kidding me, Aaron Coady? You’re fucking bleeding! Please Cherri, take us to the hospital!”

“No hospital! I wanna go home! I wanna go home right now!”

Justin was crying, he was ugly crying, there was snot running down his nose and his mouth was deformed into the shape of a downward “U”, saliva trailing all the way down to his naked chest. “Do you even know what just happened? You were almost killed! He came at you with a broken bottle! Please Aaron, you can’t be…”

“I don’t want no fucking investigation. I wanna go home. Cherri, take us home!”

In that moment, Justin had his first interaction with the dynamics of the Haus of Haunt, and he learned that day that neither Cherri nor Veruca dared contradict Aaron. He was throwing a tantrum bigger than any other he had ever thrown as a toddler, but Cherri was deaf to his threats and cries, and silently drove them both home. As they pulled up beside the house, Aaron opened the door on his side and tottered over to their front door, still drunk enough to be incapacitated to make a straight line. Justin followed him as he heard the car pulling away, sobbing quietly, looking steadfastly down at the ground, feeling as if his own insides had just been mashed up.

 

They trashed through the door as soon as Aaron could get it open, and he walked all the way to the bathroom without turning. He stepped into the shower and turned the cold water knob, unwrapping Justin’s shirt from his arm. The wound was long and it looked deep enough to fit his entire pinky finger if he were to poke it through. The cold water was rapidly sobering him up, and he dumbly realized he had left his jeans and Converse on as he had stepped into the running water. He gingerly felt his ribs and the pain was tender and exquisite as he pressed gently into his side with the tips of his fingers. A groan escaped his lips and he looked up from the floor.

“Justin? Justin, can you come in here?”

A few seconds passed before he heard Justin’s feet shuffling down the hall. He meekly poked his head from behind the frame of the door and looked at him with sorrowful eyes.

“What are you doing, Aaron? Why? Why are we here and not in the hospital?”

Aaron sighed and motioned for him to come closer. Justin dropped to his knees and crawled forward to him, big fat tears streaming down his eyes silently.

“I don’t understand what’s happening. I… What? What is happ-happening, Aaron?”

“Can you check this and tell me if there’s any glass inside?”, he signaled to his wounded shoulder and Justin closed his eyes and shook his head.

“I can’t. P-Please… Don’t…”

“Justin, come on. If there’s any glass inside, we need to get it out. Please check, I can’t turn my head like that.”

He reached out a wet hand and closed his fingers gently around Justin’s wrist. Justin bent down to press his hot cheek against it, and Aaron could see his entire frame shaking as a new round of sobs took hold of him.

“Please, baby. We need to check. We need to make sure there’s no glass in there. Come on, quickly. It’ll be over soon.”

He grabbed Justin’s soaking shirt from the shower floor beside him and twisted it to make a gag to bite down into. He placed the knot of cloth in his mouth as Justin peered into his shoulder and used his fingers to part the wound gently. Aaron groaned and bit down hard on the shirt, clenching his eyes shut as he felt Justin pulling and prodding at the angry gash. The seconds stretched longer and longer before Justin released him and sat up.

“No-nothing. There’s nothing inside.”

Aaron opened his eyes and took the cloth from his mouth, making a brave attempt at a smile. “Good, good. We’re gonna need to bandage this up tight.”

“Aaron, talk to me! What’s happening? Why?”

Justin crawled into the shower with him, water soaking him quickly, resting his head near Aaron’s healthy shoulder and crying.

“Justin, I can’t go to the hospital. There’ll be a whole inquiry and they’ll shut down the bar. Everyone will be investigated. I don’t need to remind you that if they test my blood, they’ll find more than booze in there. I don’t need a fucking drug stint on top of all of this. Besides…”, his voice broke and he realized he was tearing up. He coughed loudly to dislodge the ball inside his throat. “I can’t afford a hospital bill. I’m not exactly insured.”

“Is this about money? You know that I can…”

“I don’t want you calling your mom and telling her you need money for my hospital bill. I don’t want you telling her I was beat to shit inside a bar because I picked a fight when I was drunk. It’s gonna be fine. We’re gonna bandage this up and it’ll be fine. I promise. I’ve been hurt before.”

“B-but… But what about your ribs?”

“They’re fine. They’re not broken. I wouldn’t be able to breathe if they were.”

 

They spent what felt like hours under the cold spray of water, Aaron trying to shush Justin’s fears and pleas with stiff kisses, tangling his hair into his dark hair until Justin’s lips were blue from the cold. After they climbed out they stripped naked and Justin poured alcohol over Aaron’s wound and used a clean white shirt to bandage up Aaron’s shoulder tightly. They slowly slid into bed, naked, Aaron resting on his good shoulder with Justin’s arm draped carefully over his side. They pretended to sleep, but did not. 

 

Aaron was terrified. During their courtship, they had bared each other down to the bone and exposed every single one of their dirty secrets to one another. Justin knew all about his days of prostituting himself for meth money, he knew about his unrelenting alcoholism and cocaine addiction, and he knew that he had a violent streak in him that threatened to come out whenever he was intoxicated. He knew he had landed in the hospital multiple times as a teen, and he knew he had once broken a man’s arm with his bare hands. But Aaron realized that hearing about it was not the same as experiencing it first hand. He felt petrified with the threat of something fracturing, rupturing between them. Everything had been going so well…

 

“I’m sorry”, he whispered.

He felt Justin’s hand reach for his own and grip it tightly. It did little to dispel his nerves.

“I’m sorry for ruining your show.”

Justin pressed a kiss to the back of his neck. “Stop it. Don’t even… Just don’t, Aaron. I don’t give a shit about that.” Aaron felt Justin’s breathing speeding up, and he knew he was crying again. He hated himself for ruining everything. “I was so scared. I thought… I thought he was going to…”

Aaron could not turn. He was a rag of a man, unable to even turn around and console his lover, only because he had let alcohol and rage get the best of him in a moment of passion. _You’re a piece of garbage. If he leaves you, you deserve it. Look at yourself, you pathetic wimp._

“I don’t know what I’d do, Aaron. I wouldn’t know what do with my life if…”

Aaron grabbed Justin’s hand again and squeezed it. “I know, baby. I know.”

_I don’t know what I would do with my life without you. You beautiful, beautiful man._

 

They slept a little. In the morning, Justin helped Aaron into boxer shorts and led him to the couch, where he served him french toast and maple syrup. He clung to Aaron’s leg as he wolfed it down, balled up in the floor beneath him, stroking his calf and looking up to him with the same puppy eyes that held so much power over him. And Aaron promised him. To never again put them in the same situation. Never again.

 

* * *

 

Aaron’s hand reached over to his side and pressed down into the ribs that had suffered a contusion more than one year before. They had eventually stopped hurting, and he had developed a nasty infection in his shoulder that landed them in the hospital after all. Justin had emptied what was left of his savings account to pay for his bills, and Aaron had promised to repay him for every cent. Justin threw a fit, grabbing the flower vase that stood in their coffee table and slinging it to the wall, shouting for Aaron to understand that he was his, his life, his everything, and that he would give everything he had to him over and over again, every day for the rest of their lives. And he did not want to hear any more bullshit about paying anybody back.

 

He smiled at the memory. Slowly, he stood up to reach his desk.

 

**Lasky,**

**Exhausted today. I know I promised you I’d never get into another fight, and I want you to know I’m only breaking that promise this once. This challenge requires us to be professional female wrestlers, and I feel like I have the upper hand because of my vast fighting experience. Laugh a little, Lasky. It’s funny now, huh?**

 

**Been thinking a lot about you, and us, and what happened that one time. It was selfish of me to put you through that, but I think I can safely say it was the first and last time I was ever selfish to you. Being far from you is making me relive so much of the stuff we’ve gone through together, both good and bad. I think it’s a good thing.**

 

He stared at the paper in front of him, and an intense feeling of homesickness took hold of him.

 

**Are you thinking about me, too?**

**Don’t worry. I’ll tell the girls to go easy on my ribs.**


	6. Episode 2 (II)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sharon hits the ring to face off The Bitchkickers in The Luscious Ladies of the WTF Challenge, and Aaron reminisces about the night he met Justin at a house party during the Pittsburgh winter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry it took me so long to update, but (I don't know if you're experiencing this too) my life has been completely hijacked by Season 10. I'm enjoying this season so much! Whose team are you on? As you can probably guess, I'm #TeamAquaria. I do hope my few readers didn't give up on this story. Trust me, I haven't. I hope you enjoy, and if so leave me a comment or a kudos!
> 
> PS. I tried to keep my pronouns straight during the flashback, but going back and forth between present-Sharon and past-Aaron made my head dizzy (and it's super late over here as I post this after proof-reading to the best of my abilities). I do hope I got all of them right!

Aaron stood behind the room divider that shielded him from the eyes of the other queens as he carefully but firmly executed the most perfect tuck he was capable of. He knew he had to make a special effort and make sure all of him was safely put away if he had any intentions of pulling off the extra tiny bikini bottom they had agreed he would wear for their wrestling performance. Secretly, he was thrilled he had discussed with Chad placing him in the team of the faces, because he wanted to show to the judges and the other girls that _he knew_ how to do pretty drag, he just _chose_ not to. The fact that Chad was going to have to play an unpolished dislikable character was an added plus for them, as he also wanted to get a jump on showing Michelle and Ru that he was not afraid to get messy. They both felt good with their position in the competition, but they knew Drag Race did not wait for anyone, and that every episode could be their last. If they wanted to show versatility, the second episode was when. Third episode was not guaranteed. _But I can’t go home now. The stakes are too high. I just can’t. The stakes are too high._

He briefly squeezed his eyes shut as he gathered his breath and went for that little extra _push_ that would make him confident enough to put on his shiny bottom and tights. Quickly securing it all with an adhesive patch, he smiled awkwardly and sighed deeply. _Breathe through the pain, dammit. Breathe. Put your mind off it._

Tucking was not the most entertaining thing about drag, but he had been doing it for years and had come to love it as an integral part of the art that he respected so much. He winced as he remembered those horrible months years before in his youth when he had tried to “rebel against the system” and do drag untucked. Back then, it had been another way to be shocking and non-conforming. Soon enough he had come to realize it made him feel weird, exposed, and just generally uncomfortable. His drag mother at the time had told him that drag’s purpose was to make you feel empowered and fierce, and that anything that made him feel such unease was a step in the wrong direction for his developing artwork. The exact words he had used had been something along the lines of “ _Quit this shit already, I’m tired of watching you grimacing every time you put on a dress and see that stupid bulge. I taught you better than this._ ”

As he finally stepped out from behind the screen, he gingerly took a few long steps, spreading his legs as much as he could, testing his tuck for possible malfunctions. He was going to be jumping and grinding on the ring, and the thought of anything _popping out_ terrified him. What would Ru say?

Madame approached him in half-drag and offered a comforting smile. “Walk it off mama, walk off that pain. You know how it is.”

Aaron smiled and shrugged. “You’re the one I’m worried about. How’s your ankle feeling?”

“Hurts a little, not gonna lie. But I’m a professional and I will not let my team down. I’d rather cut off my foot.”

“Girl, _I_ will cut off your foot if you fucking drop me on that ring. This ass is too precious”, he replied, spanking his right thigh.

“Mama, what ass? You’re skinny as a toothpick!”

“I know, do you think I could have some of yours? You have enough for all of us.”

Madame shrieked with laughter and Aaron felt fondness growing inside his chest. He liked Madame, he was the embodiment of Big Girl Pride, and that confidence easily washed over all the others. It almost made him forget worrying about his ankle.

 

They chuckled as they made their way over to their own clothes racks, and Aaron started putting on his tights, cinch, pads. Sharon was coming alive, and her heart fluttered in anticipation. She was enjoying being in front of the cameras, as unbelievable as that was to her own brain. She had always thought of herself as a performer, first and foremost, but she had never relished posing for pictures or being videotaped. What few photo-shoots or videos she had participated in had been for promotional purposes only, or to help Marina with video projects. But now, with a win under her belt, she felt a different air moving around her, and she could not wait to be in front of the filming crew. She knew every single second of screen time she would eventually get in the final edit meant a little more she would be able to charge for her booking fee, and she was determined to give the producers plenty of great material to work with. _The stakes are too high, now. I can’t disappoint Ru. I can’t disappoint Justin. Not after winning. The stakes are too fucking high._

As she put on the gold sequin bikini they had worked on together, she started feeling more and more as the glamorous girl she had never really, fully been. She had always thought she was sexy, and beautiful in her own punk rock way, but never glamorous. The only one that had ever made her feel like the greatest of the Hollywood stars was Justin. She sat down at her station to start working on her make-up, and as she swiped thick foundation on her face and started blending, her mind wandered back to those golden days when she had been in the full swing of new-found infatuation.

 

* * *

 

Sharon was sitting in front of the old stained mirror that hung beneath the cheap lightbulbs inside of what was supposed to be a backstage dressing room of sorts in the filthy basement of the Blue Moon. Her face was nearly completely painted, and as she powdered herself before putting on eyelashes, her brain was playing a loop of the first time the sunrise had found him in Justin’s company, his sleeping face illuminated by the gold sunlight streaming from his bedroom window, his body gloriously naked, chest still glittering with sweat beads heaving up and down as he slept off the fourth orgasm of the night. Aaron had stared at him for nearly half an hour, watching him sleep, his heart drumming painfully, his body tingling exquisitely at all the newly made memories from the previous 10 hours, his mind still spinning at the thought of how they had gone from MySpace strangers to lovers in the extent of one beautiful night. He felt elated, invincible, his emotions pouring into his stomach like a cascade of molten gold that made him want to run naked through the streets in the Pittsburgh winter, screaming “ _I’ve found him! I finally found him! I found the one! He’s it! He’s with me! He has gorgeous brown lashes and the biggest blue eyes! His name’s Justin and he’s with me! We finally found each other!_ ”

They had kissed softly and slowly in the snowy backyard of a Pittsburgh suburb house, the kind of place that he had eyed scornfully when he was a teen, cursing the rich people that lived inside. He had flat-out declined the invitation to this party when he had received it, absolutely refusing to spend 40 minutes making his way to Upper St. Clair only to be looked at disdainfully by the other party goers. The only reason he had been invited in the first place was because Bryce had started frequenting the Blue Moon in recent months, in an attempt to escape the stuffy white-collar environment where he felt he could never be _fully_ gay. Aaron had seen him sitting alone in a booth at the bar, sipping clumsily at a Long Island Iced Tea, his plaid blue Polo button-down shirt sticking out outrageously against the cross-dressers, the drag queens and the leather enthusiasts. At first he had written him off as a frat boy involved in some kind of hazing bet, but during the drag performance of some visiting queens from another bar across town he saw him smiling and enjoying the show, and it piqued his interest enough that he made his way across the bar over to him, clutching a PBR and plopping down beside him. Bryce had ended up drinking 8 Long Island Ice Teas and had spilled all the details about the family that said they accepted him but eyed him uneasily during Sunday dinners, the life-long “friends” that had shunned him when he had come out two years before, the scummy teenage neighbors that had pelted his car with eggs once, and the handful of friends that had stayed by his side through it all. Bizarrely, Aaron felt himself sympathizing with him. It was hard being the leper of the colony. At the end of the night, he had fished the Audi car keys out of Bryce’s pocket and given them over to the bartender, before putting him in a taxicab, Bryce hugging him and sniffling as he got inside, pressing a sweaty piece of paper with his phone number scribbled on it and begging him to promise to call. Even strangest that the entire episode was the fact that Aaron did call him the next day. There was no physical attraction, no intention of getting a blowjob from the preppy college kid. He just wanted to reach out a friendly hand. And Bryce took it.

After that, Bryce had become a staple in the Blue Moon and some times even took the stage to karaoke some songs at the goadings of the drag queens. One night, Bryce told him happily that his parents were going out of town and he intended to throw a party, “ _something chill and cool_ ” with the few friends he still had left, and he insisted he come. Aaron had declined politely but firmly, explaining he had no business being in one of the richest boroughs of Pittsburgh. Bryce still texted him the address and begged him to attend, to which Aaron had only replied with smiley faces. It was not until Justin had mentioned in a MySpace DM that he was coming to Pittsburgh for the holidays and that he was going to meet up with some friends at some kid’s party on the same night that he remembered Bryce’s party. Neither he nor Justin had wanted to admit they wanted to meet, but they had been flirting for months and Aaron knew it was stupid to discard such a golden opportunity. After some subtle prodding, Aaron found out he was going to attend Bryce’s party, and he determined to go after all. He had been shivering with nerves all the way to Upper St. Clair, but the moment he had seen Justin walking towards the party on the opposite sidewalk, his heart had soared and he knew he had been predestined to end up in that very suburb on that very night. Justin was even more beautiful in person.

“For fuck’s sake bitch, you’ve been flicking that brush for 20 fucking minutes with that stupid smile on your face!”, Veruca’s voice snapped her out of her reverie, and she jumped slightly, looking at her reflection on the mirror. The excess powder had made her look even paler than usual, and she smiled sheepishly.

“Sorry. Almost done. Are we late?”, she tried to sound casual as she carefully put glue on a fake eyelash and blew on it.

“Five minutes left. Where the fuck are you, anyway? You’ve been really weird this week”, Veruca’s voice had a hard edge to it. She took their performances really seriously, and it unnerved her to think Sharon might not be completely in it that night.

“I’m here, I’m here, honey”, Sharon crooned softly, still smiling, perfectly placing the fake eyelash on her lid and looking at herself in the mirror before winking an eye at Veruca.

“This is stupid. We know something’s up”, Cherri was clicking her heels impatiently on the floor. “You’re never this smiley. What’s going on? Did you finally get your dick sucked or something?”

Sharon laughed, full of happiness, the skin on her arms sticking out in goosebumps as she remembered the feeling of Justin’s mouth on her all too clearly. “Well, yes, Cherri doll, I must say I did.”

“Oh please don’t tell me you finally bullied that poor snooty kid into sucking you off, that’s just fucking mean, Needles”, Veruca tried to look stern, but Sharon saw the playful glint in her eye all too clearly, and laughed again.

“Nope. You know me, Veruca. I don’t do frat boys, no matter how handsome the tip.”

“Well then who?”, Cherri looked dumbfounded at both of them. “I find it hard to believe that some random trade would have you looking this sickeningly chirpy.”

Sharon dropped the tube of glue on the table and let her mouth break into a grin as she closed her eyes and used her hands to fan herself, trying to get rid of the blush creeping up her neck. Cherri squealed knowingly and grabbed her arm, shaking her frantically. “Oh my god, who is it? Tell us! Tell us right now!”

 

The two drag queens pulled up chairs on either side of Sharon as she told them about Justin and recounted what had gone down that night a week before, how he had developed an attack of hiccups after crossing the street at a run to catch up with Justin, how happy he had been to see Aaron, that they had hugged like old friends, that he had fallen on his ass after slipping on a patch of ice dropping a full bag of beer and how Justin had laughed, only for Aaron to laugh at him when he opened a can of stirred beer and sprayed liquid all over his face. How he had experienced an intense desire to lick all the beer off him and the way Justin sat on the kitchen countertop, holding one knee under his chin, listening to him speak as if he was saying the most interesting of things. She recounted how Justin had cooed over his Tammy Faye tattoo, and how they recited lines of The Eyes of Tammy Faye together, also telling them about how he had made Justin laugh into his own attack of hiccups doing his Nancy Grace impersonation. Cherri squealed again when she detailed how they had kissed by the light of the moon, their cold noses pressing against one another, how Justin had wrapped his arms around him and the way he smelled of wood and musk. She saw Veruca grab Cherri’s arm in excitement when he recounted how they had made their way all the way over to his house, not even bothering to say goodbye to Bryce, kissing and holding hands the entire way there, and how Justin had grabbed his hand to lick his fingers as Aaron went down on him. He finished by telling them how he had re-heated some old mac and cheese in the morning, how they ate it directly out of the plastic container and fed each other in between kisses, before going back to bed for an encore of the night before.

“This story is so fucking amazing I may cry”, Cherri was looking at Sharon with tender eyes, and Sharon could feel how excited they both were for her. The three of them knew this was not a tryst. “Never before have I seen you like this. Bitch, you’re fucking glowing!”

“But wait, what happened then? He lives in LA, doesn’t he?”

“Well, yeah”, Sharon distracted herself by turning around towards the mirror again andpretending to finally try and squeeze glue onto her other fake eyelash, a tight knot constricting her chest, “He went over to Eerie to be with his family and he flew back to LA yesterday.”

“What? You didn’t see each other again?”, Cherri asked, bewildered.

“Well… No… He had promised his mom he was only spending one night here, and he only ever sees her once a year. They’re really close. His flight left very early in the morning, we couldn’t…”, she swallowed and cast her eyes downward at the table top full of make-up and brushes.

“But, you’re gonna see each other again, right?”, Veruca prodded.

“I dunno. I… I really don’t know, guys”, Sharon turned around in her seat, her eyes searching Veruca and Cherri’s in alternation. “I mean, I want to. I… I miss him. It sounds stupid, but I do. But, I don’t know what’s going to happen now. He has a life in LA…”

“Wait. I mean, you obviously talked about this before saying goodbye?”, Veruca prompted.

“We…”, Sharon swallowed again, feeling panic when she noticed her eyes were filling with tears, “Yeah, we exchanged phone numbers and he called me everyday when he was in Eerie. He said the most wonderful things…”, she smiled sorrowfully, “About how much he had loved finally meeting me and how he thought about me all the time. He… He did say he wants to…”, she fell silent at the ridiculousness of it. _How would that work? I’m not eighteen anymore to try a long distance relationship. It’s stupid. I’m stupid._

“That he wants to what?”, Cherri asked, hopefully.

“That he wants to come back and see me soon, that he… that he can’t stop thinking about me, and us… But, I mean, so what? Right? I mean, it’s stupid. The only way this could work is if…” _Don’t say it, don’t say it. Don’t even think it. It’s too wonderful to think about it. Shit like that doesn’t happen to you. Good shit like that doesn’t come true for you. Don’t say it._

“…if he were to move here”, Veruca stated firmly.

“Don’t… don’t…”, Sharon pled, but Veruca steamrolled over her.

“No, I’ll fucking say it. If he were to move back here. That’s what you mean, that’s what you want to say. And it’s not stupid to think about. He lived here before, he has family living close by. He called you every day when he was surrounded by his family during the holidays, I daresay he couldn’t have had a lot of privacy to do that but he still did it. Is there any thing that he has done that could make you think that he’s just in it for the sex?”

Sharon thought back at the way they had kissed, not with lust but with affection, as if they had been doing it for years. She thought about how Justin had cuddled him for two hours even after he had said he had to go or his mother would kill him, how they had hugged goodbye at the door, Justin’s blue eyes watery, his hands clutching at his shirt desperately, as if hoping he could take a bit of Aaron with him to Eerie. Aaron had stood on the door frame watching Justin’s back as he walked down the block towards the bus stop. At the corner, Justin had turned around to look at him and smiled when he saw him still standing there. He had put both palms on his chest, swaying a little on the spot, his eyes fixed on Aaron as he blew him one last kiss. When the bus had come rushing down the street behind him, he had turned to run after it, but paused long enough to yell out, “ _I’ll call you!_ ”. And he had.

“No. It wasn’t just sex. Definitely not.”

“Tell him to come”, Cherri declared. “Invite him over again, immediately. Then you’ll know.”

“Know what?”, Sharon asked, her voice full of hope.

“If he’s it.”

 

* * *

 

 

Aaron’s back ached dully as he stepped into the van that was going to take them back to the hotel, the rest of the queens loudly complaining about imaginary injuries, Phi Phi dramatically holding her hand close to her chest and wincing with fictitious pain. Madame sat next to Aaron, smiling happily, confident in their performance, tender ankle all forgotten. Chad turned around in his seat and grinned at them. “Nice job, Madame. You’re a trooper.”

Madame smiled and shrugged, downplaying his achievement, but Aaron could tell he was proud at how well they had done. He dared to hope that they had done better than the others and that their team would win, effectively placing him again at the forefront of the competition. His stomach rumbled loudly and he wanted nothing more than to have dinner and soak himself in the tub in his hotel room to soothe his back pain with warm water. It was Friday night and he knew filming would break for the weekend and they would have to wait for two excruciating days before finding out who had earned the win. The thought of it filled him with anxiety, although a small part of him was eager to rest his sore muscles over the weekend.

 

After a surprisingly rewarding dinner of hearty vegetarian Alfredo pasta, he made his way up to his room and gratefully pushed the door open, falling face down onto his bed and groaning. Smiling, he reasoned that one of the best parts about this whole experience was coming home to a freshly made bed. After laying on his stomach for what felt like hours he felt himself starting to doze off, and resolved to get up and take that long hot bath before succumbing to exhaustion. 

As he sat on the edge of the tub naked and waiting for the water to fill it up, he thought about how much Justin would love to be able to share the bath with him. Their home in Pittsburgh did not have a bathtub, and the thought of a naked Justin surrounded by bubbles made him feel a stirring in his loins. He wondered if he had it in him to masturbate, since he had not done it since arriving in LA, but after giving his privates a small tug he found he was too tired to even entertain the thought. Instead, he climbed into the tub and moaned with satisfaction as he submerged himself in the soapy, warm water. After soaking for a few minutes, he started to scrub himself lazily, slowly shampooing his hair and reveling in the feeling of comfort that enveloped him.

Getting out of the tub had been a struggle, but he forced himself to stand up and quickly toweled himself dry as he watched the small whirlpool of water going down the drain. Smiling, he wrapped a towel around his hair and looked at himself in the mirror. _You did good, you idiot. You’re alright._

He sat naked in front of his small desk and grabbed his journal and pen. He was burned-out beyond belief, but he needed to pour out some thoughts before finally turning in. He knew he was not going to be able to sleep otherwise.

 

**Lasky,**

**Every single inch of me hurts, but I kicked some ass today. I executed what I do believe to be the tightest tuck of my career and pranced around that ring whipping my blonde curls back and forth. I was wearing the tiniest little golden bikini and I looked fucking hot. You would’ve gagged. They brought in a real live audience and the sound of them cheering for us was incredible. It filled me with all the adrenaline I needed, and believe me: I NEEDED SOME! I was lifted up and spun around countless times, but I held my own and managed to look pretty as they slammed me across the ring. I feel good. My team was amazing, and I do think we had the best developed characters of the entire challenge. Can you imagine if we won? It would be my second win in a row, which I know doesn’t really count because it’s a group challenge, but still! Probably the best part of it was seeing Miss Chad Michaels play the messy villain, and she looked ROUGH, lemme tell ya! She took it like a champ tho, and really got into character, insulting the crowd and such. Ru looked so entertained and she gasped and laughed in all the right places. I still think it was a bit of a weird challenge, but I’m just glad I didn’t have to face another sewing challenge again so soon. Next runway is the girlish look, and I’m ready with that stupid cheesy prom dress we bought at that second-hand place downtown. I’m gonna listen to you and wear those ridiculously high pumps, but if I eat shit on the runway you’re never gonna hear the end of it! I’m now getting ready to spend the weekend completely secluded in my room, ‘cause I really doubt they’ll let us go around sightseeing while filming breaks (that’ll be the day). I’m just gonna focus on staying concentrated on the competition and probably gonna tackle that Clive Barker anthology you bought me.**

**I just finished taking a bath (I have a tub, Lasky!) and I got a semi from imagining you in there with me. Once I come back home and start raking in that sweet dough from my fresh new fame (ha!) I’ll book us the most amazing jacuzzi suite at the Omni, with a canopy bed, and we’ll fucking raid the mini bar and finally find out if it’s haunted or not. Though I doubt you’ll be able to notice if a ghost does appear beside the bed, since you’ll be knocked out cold by all the times I’m gonna make you cum.**   
****

 

**But not yet, Lasky. Not yet. I’m not coming home, yet.**

 

He finished off his entry with a drawing of a bleeding heart and put down his pen. With whatever energy he still had left he fished a pair of y-fronts out of his suitcase and clumsily put them on before tugging the towel off his head and ripping the covers off the bed. He hugged a pillow to his chest, ignoring the damp feeling of his hair dripping on his face, and closed his eyes, thinking of Justin.


End file.
